Return of the Googly Specs
by CosmicKitten89
Summary: As Ludwig and Iggy compete for the top prize at Frankenstein University, tensions arise, jealousies result in devastating consequences, and a terrifying mystery unfolds. Sort of a sequel to "The TellTale Googly Specs", Ludwig's POV.
1. Science Fair

**HI! Sorry I haven't been on much. My Chipmunks Parody Show videos have been taking a while too. I am in college now and my classes are early in the morning and really late in the evening, so I'm at school pretty much all day, unless I want to walk all the way home in the middle of the day, and the computer's too heavy to drag all that way, so no hope of working on them except on the weekends (which for me are Friday through Sunday! :D)…**

**I promise I will eventually go back into a period during which I will finish all my current stories and then some; for now, I can only write sporadically, when inspiration strikes! **

**This story takes place some months after "The TellTale Googly Specs". Also, my sister will probably kill me for this, but I decided to change Karma's name to Caramel (if that's OK with The Caramel Koopa :)**

"LUDWIG!"

The roar of my father's voice awakened me from whatever trance I had fallen under.

I look around. Finished and unfinished projects everywhere. Paper with undecipherable scribbles. Just my lab, without so much as a pencil or a tool in my hand to remind me of what I had been doing all night.

I was working on… something. Or maybe I had fallen asleep?

Oh well. It happens every so often. Sometimes with extraordinary results.

But not today, apparently…

"LUDWIG!"

My thick matted hair stands on end again. I move the fluid-filled graduated cylinder from in front of my nearest electronic clock.

Six-fifty-nine.

My disordered synapses suddenly snap back into place. Twenty one minutes before the bus comes.

No rush.

I start the day right – with a blended coffee, flavored by sea salt, caramel, and espresso ground out of coffee beans that my mother had sent me as a gift from Austria, out of my homemade Koopaccino maker. Just like the one I had last night.

My hair stands on end again – this time from the lab on the other side of the basement.

Iggy. How juvenile. I had long since gotten over the age at which I found it fun to simply make stuff explode.

I bring my drink to the breakfast table to savor it while my siblings eat their factory-farmed eggs, overly processed cereal and sausages that, I'm sure, were NOT crafted in Europe. The pulse of caffeine instantly lifts my mood.

Just what I need to endure yet ANOTHER boring day at the Mushroom Kingdom Academy.

The day drags on and on… I only perk up at the sight of the poster reminding me of the science fair whose registration deadline is next week.

The science fair. The only time during the otherwise vapid school year during which I get to shine.

Well, perhaps not the only time. I also dominated the quiz bowl, the robotics league, the chess championship, and band tournaments (I wish I could say the talent show, but there is little schoolwide appreciation for my virtuosity at various instruments, or my advanced skills at composition).

But the science fair is perhaps my favorite. Even though there is no challenge to my winning every year, I revel in the attention I receive from the professionals, and it is also quite humorous to see what my "peers" come up with.

Although it isn't quite fair for me to be allowed to enter, considering I already hold a bachelor's degree…

Oh well. Shame on Father for enrolling me here in the first place.

The anticipation of such an event never fails to make my heart flutter. I begin pondering what to enter…

Any one of my inventions that I have thrown about my lab like so much junk would win the fair hands down. However, I like to make the fair a challenge for myself and come up with something new within the week before.

My harmonic thoughts are subdued by destructive interference from my chemistry teacher's babble.

I groan. High school chemistry, even at the "advanced placement" level, is about as stimulating as a formalized study of the do's and don'ts of teen fashion, a subject that I have become well versed in over the years just from listening to my sister Wendy gossiping on the phone.

Oxidation and reduction… what simple formulae. Maybe I can…

"Now if chlorine donates one of its electrons to sodium, which is the oxidizing agent and which is the reducing agent?"

I take that back. Teen fashion is more stimulating than this.

I would raise my hand to answer that chlorine is the reducing agent and sodium is the oxidizing agent, and then proceed to deliver a more thorough explanation for the reaction in terms of quantum mechanics, but the teachers had already tired of my habit of doing this and would thus ignore me until, several seconds later, the second most intelligent student (by a LONG shot) of the class would raise his or her hand.

My class finally ends, and my thoughts are free to wander.

I wonder who the judges will be this year. Perhaps…

Nah, well, maybe…

My thoughts return to my Transmutational Brainwave Analyzer. I had scarcely touched it in the many years since I invented it, except a few months ago when I…

Well, if I further modified it so that instead of printing the thoughts out on a piece of paper, that it would display the mind's eye on a TV screen…

I giggle in delight. Ooh, what a challenge! I don't believe anybody's ever captured the brain's visuospatial imaging and recreated it in video format before!

The question is whether I can figure it out within the week before the registration deadline.

I snicker at my own question. A week is PLENTY of time.

I return home, suck down another coffee (this time a warm one with Milka syrup in it) and begin preparing one of my preserved brains for revitalization and experimentation.

I hear crazed laughing coming out of Iggy's lab. No explosion this time.

Perhaps I would actually have worthy competition this year.

But then, this was my last year in the science fair, and Iggy's first. Having only been a genius for a mere few months (assuming he wasn't affecting mental retardation the entire time before), he still had a long way to go to catch up with me…


	2. Guinea Pigs

I paced back and forth, trying to deafen my mind to the racket of incessant laughter and electrical mayhem. Perhaps I shall construct a wall – a very thick, soundproof glass wall, reinforced with lead for firmness - down the middle of the lab so that we can each have some privacy!

I turn on the CD that has my recording of my piano arrangement of "Greensleeves", and I turn it up LOUD. My pacing eases, and my mind becomes fruitful…

My brain crashes at Iggy's sudden, loud, steady screaming. He runs over to my audio player, still screaming, bangs the off button and then the eject button, takes the CD, scribbles all over it with green crayon, and tosses it to the floor, injuring my toe. He then runs back to his side of the lab.

How idiotic of me to neglect the headphones.

I turn on a CD of my pipe organ arrangement of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", this time after making sure that I put a headphone jack in. I cautiously eye the audio player as I resume my cogitations, knowing that Iggy would want to turn it off and pull the CD out if he knew it was on even if he couldn't hear it. I am now deaf to Iggy's racket, and the plans for my mind's eye and mental audio reconstructor begin to come together in my own mind's eye…

Now I needed live subjects. Iggy? Iggy had always been my favorite guinea pig, but I should probably use relatively normal minds for this, plus, I wasn't sure I wanted to see what Iggy was seeing with his mind's eye…

The song ends and I remove the headphones and turn off the audio player. I am almost to the lab door, ready to go fetch my other siblings, when I hear their voices chattering within the walls of this lab.

Iggy had gotten to my guinea pigs first.

"Siblings, why on earth have you volunteered for Iggy's experimental regimen, torture treatment, whatever he had been doing to you?

"We… really didn't have a choice," said Larry.

Figures. "Well, unlike Iggy Hop over there, I shall actually offer you the choice of volunteering for one of my experiments."

"If it's like your Dr. K's hair growth formula, forget it!" said Roy.

I snicker as I recall the time that Wendy cried and whined for me to make her a hair growth formula. She insisted that I test it on Roy before her, and it resulted in Roy growing long purple radioactive dreadlocks. Father had punished me for this and forbid me from selling my line of Dr. K's products until I actually become a doctor.

"No, no, this is nothing like that. I'm just going to, ahem, scan your minds to SEE what you are thinking." I can't help but giggle a bit at this thought.

"Well, if you're going to do that to us, then we deserve a REWARD!" screamed Wendy.

"But of course. Anything… what?"

"I want you to pressurize some carbon to make me some DIAMONDS!"

Interesting that Wendy actually remembered something from science class.

"And I want you to fix my workout machine!" said Roy. Even a heavy duty home gym is too delicate for his indelicate build and demeanor.

"And I want you to use your time machine to take me back to see KISS's first concert EVER!" screams Morton.

"And I want some cash money, a sack full of coins, like ten grand or so," said Larry, rubbing his fingers together.

"How about I just synthesize some crystal meth for you?" I offer.

"Works for me," says Larry.

"And I want CANDY!" says Lemmy, bouncing up and down on his ball.

He ball rolls on over to the place where he knows that I keep my candy stash and picks up a half-eaten Milka bar with strawberry yogurt filling, a variety rare outside of Europe.

He begins to peel open the resealable wrapper but I take it and put it back in the drawer, this time locking it. I am quite reluctant to share with him my pricey imported treats. "No candy until after the experiment. How about I give you a Hershey bar instead?"

"But I want THAT!" cried Lemmy. "It's special in the purple wrapper and it's got pink cream on the inside! And it's got words on the wrapper that I don't understand and that makes it taste better!"

I sigh. I suppose it won't be torture to part with just half of my favorite kind of chocolate. "All right, you can have the special chocolate bar with the Deutsch language wrapper when we're done here."

I hook them all up to the chairs with the helmets and begin to make adjustments to the machine. As I attach it to a computer monitor and loudspeakers and reconfigure it according to my theory, my idle thoughts turn to Iggy.

"Pardon me, if you don't mind me asking, what exactly is Iggy working on for the science fair?"

"Hehe, good luck beating him this year! Ohh, man, is he working on some crazy shit!" shouts Morton.

"I have been a genius my entire life, Iggy hasn't even been one for a year, so I daresay he has SEVERAL YEARS of studying to do before he even has a shot of taking my title."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that man, Iggy's made some shit that's INSANE, man, things I doubt even YOU can build! But he told me he'd zap me with it if I told you he built a tachyonic death ray, whatever the hell that means…"

A death ray whose blasts travel faster than the speed of light? Nothing special. I've built things that travel faster than the speed of light, and I've built death rays, although admittedly I've never built a death ray that emits superluminal particles, but conceptually it's not hard considering I've mastered death rays and superluminal particles…

"So is that what he's doing for the science fair?" I ask.

"No, he's not doing that for the science fair! He's got something SERIOUS cooked up for that, he just tested it on us and oh boy did it WORK, but if I told you that he actually built a -"

"AW SHUT UP!" yelled Roy, shaking his fist at the younger brother.

Still, a death ray… I was quite a few years old before I was capable of designing and building one of those…

Even older before I found out that neutrinos could travel faster than light…

I feel a twinge of an unfamiliar emotion. An emotion that burns and eats at the soul, one that inspires a dark and murderous song to compose itself in my head…

I was no stranger to jealousy, the feeling of justified bitterness at somebody else getting something that I deserve, that I am truly more worthy of (thanks to my father holding me back)…

But the feeling that somebody might be truly more worthy and deserving than you…

Whether by reason or by pride, I discount the notion. Iggy has only progressed so fast because, one, he was older and therefore not preoccupied by the pains of early development when he got his intelligence, secondly, he has no appreciation for art or culture and thus concentrates only on science, and thirdly, because he had me, the best of all teachers, to train him.

Besides, he is my brother, I ought to be proud of him for that, and furthermore his genius is my creation, and for that I should also be proud.

Finally, a worthy match… should I not be thrilled about this?

I turn the settings on to tune into Wendy's visual thoughts first. Her mental images appear on the screen.

My brooding has so gnawed at my psyche that I had not exulted in the giggly thrill of triumph as I normally do.

Frustrated at this realization, I force myself to perk up and pay attention.

It's images from some television show that she likes. Exactly which show, I can't tell, for the detail is very blurry. Not a fault of the technology; the so-called mind simply wasn't much to work with. The sound, mainly jumbled conversation and pop music, is fairly clear, though, both the words and the voices, so Wendy must have a good memory for dialogue

I then scan Morton's. The moment I turn him on, I am blasted by the sudden and loud onslaught of sound that he has in his head. I turn the volume down and observe the scant images. Clearly his verbal memory was dominant. The visuals were less colorful than Wendy's, but the form was more defined, as I would expect from the thoughts of the average male Koopa The clearest was, of course, a memory of a KISS concert.

I then tune in to Roy's thoughts. The visuals, which vaguely appear to be violent, are dull, fuzzy, and practically black and white. The sounds were unclear, the voices sounding generic and computerized. Nothing more than I would expect from such a natural-born lowbrow thug as Roy.

I then check Lemmy's thoughts. The sound is some annoying, repetitive children's tune that is off-key , off-rhythm and off-tempo. The visuals are all cartoonish looking – perhaps Lemmy only likes to think about cartoons?

Last, and somewhat hesitantly, I check Larry's. There is very little sound in his thoughts, but the visuals are, in color and in particular shape, the most vivid yet.

Perhaps _too_ vivid…

Even more disturbingly, Lemmy, despite not being able to see the monitor from the seat that he's strapped to, seems to know exactly, in his characteristic uncanny way, what Larry's thinking about…

I shut the monitor off in disgust and release my siblings.

"OK, you are all free to leave."

"Wait a minute!" shrieks Wendy, stamping the floor with her high heeled foot. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Like my time travel KISS concert!" shouts Morton.

"And my special exotic pink cream chocolate bar!" whines Lemmy.

I sigh and get the Milka half out to hand to Lemmy. I rev up my time machine and program it to take Morton back instantly after one day spent in the past.

"Hey, I need money for a ticket!" shouts Morton.

Of course. I open the safe and hand him the required funds (in real world American money, knowing that Mushroom Kingdom/Dark Land Coins are not valid currency there).

"And I also need money to buy snacks…"

I hand him another dollar.

"What? C'mon, this ain't enough to buy all the snacks I want!"

"A dollar's worth a lot more in the past than it is now!" With that I kick him into the time portal.

"OK, now you gotta make me diamonds!" shouts Wendy.

"And crystal meth!" adds Larry.

I rummage through my drug cabinets, but all I can find is the drug MDMA.

"Larry, will you settle for ecstasy?"

"Sure." Larry's beady eyes bulge with lust as I hand him the entire pill container filled with tablets of a chemical he will gladly use to wreak who knows what havoc on his body and mind.

"Say, can I have some cash too?"

I reach into my shell, find a single Coin, and place it in his palm and say, "good day."

"Aww, man, only one? Oh well, a Coin's a Coin!"

"I NEED MY DIAMONDS!" Wendy screams.

"And you still gotta fix my workout machine!" yells Roy.

I was just beginning to flow with more ideas for my mind reconstructor. I wish I had already created some diamonds earlier. I search around until I find the small gizmo I used to alter the allotropic arrangement of carbon atoms and I throw some graphite dust into it.

I instantly create three cherry-sized diamonds and I toss them at Wendy, slightly bruising her bald scalp.

I then grudgingly follow Roy to his workout room to fix his equipment.

I fix it in a flash and run back to my lab. I finger the equipment, imaging what else I can do with it.

Ooh, if Iggy really is as skilled as Morton claims, then beating him will make the victor all the sweeter! I giggle at the thought.

As much as I would relish such a rivalry, I come to the conclusion that it's simply not possible. Iggy was a a savant at building stuff, but judging by his tastes (or lack thereof) in arts and music, he has not a creative bone in his body. Whatever he made that's so impressive, he copied out of a sci-fi comic book. That fancy-looking death ray of his is all show, doesn't really work, basically a nonworking sculpture of a death ray.

I'm sure.

I have the urge to check on what he's doing, but I hesitate. He will probably scream and bite me if I come near him in his current manic state.

My thoughts return to my invention. Perhaps I should add electronic smell simulators, taste simulators, touch simulators to reconstruct the memory of those senses!

Why? My machine is good enough already.

BUT since when is good enough ever good enough?

Never. Until now… I need to know that I can defeat him with one hand metaphorically tied behind my back.

But I already know that I can! No need to be cocky…

Pfft, why NOT be cocky?

Oh, hasn't cockiness been the undoing of my father on many an occasion?

I prepare another espresso to buzz-block the voices from my mind and work feverishly on further embellishing my invention.


	3. Ludwig's Moment

**Yeah, I was trying to do my homework… but that Ludwig mood struck me again…**

**Hehe that was two months ago, when I was still in school… got myself kicked out like a lunatic, thank goodness… too bad for Luddy that his father won't let him withdraw…**

**Yeeeah, I've been too busy writing fanfiction for my most recent obsession, Hetalia: Axis Powers, right now, so… Austria's my fave, he's so much like Luddy, though not quite as evil (most of the time), I even did a crossover of him and Luddy if you happen to be a fan of APH as well.**

**(BTW I own nothing in this story, past, present, and future, in case you happen to own the characters in this story and are looking to sue :)**

The day has come.

My invention is set up, along with the board that explains the theory behind it.

I look all around. Nobody else's project is even remotely impressive compared to mine. Even more appalling, some of the projects are beyond the abilities of the students that supposedly created them.

Cheaters. Contrary to myth, cheaters too often do prosper, unfortunately.

I do not disguise my look of disgust with which I view projects involving cancer research, either done by those who have doctors for parents or whose parents are rich enough to buy the rights to the doctors' research for their children. Also simple, very simple robots that perhaps were actually designed by the students that were showcasing them. Eggy, a white Yoshi girl who was in most of my classes, was showing off some pictures of computer simulations from software that she supposedly designed.

"And it can take you all around the galaxy using gravity to pull you around! And then if you put an ion drive on it-"

"Eggs, you do realize that your project is a computer program, NOT an ion drive propelled spacecraft, right?"

Eggy ignored me and continued yapping to everyone who passed.

I sighed. Eggy usually took second in the science fair. She behaves, though unwittingly, like a conceited brat, even though my presence alone should have been enough to put her in her place. It would be my greatest pleasure for her to place third or lower…

But who? I am her only real competition this year…

I jump involuntarily from a sudden hair-raising screech of laughter – or was it fear? It's difficult to tell when it's coming from Iggy…

Shakily sipping my Koopaccino, my eyes follow his erratic acrobatics to the table with his project on it. My lips release the straw, and the cup falls from my hand.

Iggy's invention looked a lot like mine, minus the computer monitor. It had a pair of helmets attached, and several levers and buttons. I examine it closer in an attempt to discern what it is actually used for. It is hard to tell, for Iggy obviously did not design it with user-friendliness in mind, so I turn my eyes to the poster board that has his messily-drawn schematics and sloppily written abstract and descriptions written on it.

"GAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

Iggy torpedoes into me and sends me hiding into my shell and sliding back toward my project, which I manage to avoid hitting by sticking an arm out to claw myself some traction from the screechy linoleum floor just in time.

That bastard had probably attempted to destroy my project! Or maybe it was just an accident… or maybe he had simply made it look like an accident… No matter, no harm was done. With any luck his project will be good enough to wipe the floor with Eggy and send her crying home to Daddy.

I look around at the other projects. My girlfriend Caramel has built her own spectroscope out of common household objects. Excellent job, although not any match for Eggy's project. I doubt Eggy would have been able to build anything like this on her own however.

I become happily amused when I see that Lemmy has also made a project, this time on his own instead of with Iggy.

"This is a volcano!" he shouts while pointing at it, a goofy lazy-eyed expression on his face.

He and Iggy had always made a project together for the science fair. Every year they made a volcano of some sort, and some years it caused mayhem in the auditorium. This year, however, instead of using fire or real lava or even baking soda in the volcano, he simply used ketchup and mustard. Iggy even in the past had always been the more technically inclined of the two.

I congratulate him. In my eyes it is far more impressive than that insult to science that Eggy has made.

"Hey, do you have any more of those really yummy George Washington candies?"

I stare at him quizzically at first, then angrily as I realize that he must be talking about my _Mozartkugeln,_ a delicious chocolate candy that I had also received as a present from my relatives, for it cannot be found outside of Austria! No, I should be angry at Iggy; the sneak is probably sneaking into my secret stash to share with his brother…

The judges are then announced. After some blabbing about how this year is particularly exciting because some very high-profile scientists have volunteered to judge, Fawful of the BeanBean Kingdom is announced first as one of the judges. Fawful makes his presence onto the auditorium in his curious floating craft that he somehow built without operational limbs.

The next judge announced is Professor Elvin Gadd.

I shiver at this a bit, turning my head around to avoid his notice. I hope that he doesn't go up to me and talk to me, although he most likely will…

The third judge announced is Princess Lavender of Sarasaland. The most blatant case of nepotism I have ever seen…

I turn around to absentmindedly tinker with my project until I feel a touch that nearly causes me to jump out of my shell.

"My Luddy!"

Princess Lavender. I reluctantly comply as she squeezes and kisses me.

"Guess who just earned her Ph. D.!"

"You… cannot be serious!"

Lavender is a bright girl, but to think that she earned a Ph. D. before me simply because her parents didn't force her to put up with the entire 13 years of primary and secondary school, knowing how far ahead of her I am, makes me even bitterer towards my father.

"Your brother's project looks impressive too. And he is pretty cute, you know."

I grumble and fold my arms.

"What's the matter, Luddy? A bit jealous? Don't worry, he'll never take your place in my heart!"

She hugs and kisses me again, seemingly unaware that I am jealous for another reason, and whispers, "Your project is better."

The other two judges come near me. I tremble and squint while rolling my eyes around to avoid eye contact. Hopefully this nervous behavior does not count against me in the judging…

"Y-You see, this machine is designed to, um, project what the subject is seeing and hearing, and also seeing – I mean, FEELING – and smelling and tasting as well onto a screen – well NOT the feeling and smelling and tasting and hearing, hehe, the hearing comes out of the speakers, the smelling and taste are transmitted as electrical signals that will affect your tastebuds and your olfactory system the same way the actual chemicals would if you put this thing to your tongue and nose, and the feeling is transmitted through this, ahem, thingie."

I slap my palm to my face, rub it tightly up and then down. I probably sounded like one of the typical kids that simply had their parents or hired scientists do the project for them and tried to explain something that they didn't completely understand. I take another breath to explain it some more.

"It does not merely transmit what you are actually sensing, but also what you imagine yourself to be sensing."

"Impressive," says E. Gadd as he reads my poster board. I cringe and grit my teeth at the sound of his voice, trying to block it out of my head.

"I'll volunteer!" says Lavender.

I strap her into the seat and attach the helmet to her head.

Her thoughts come across as clear, colorful, musical, simply beautiful compared to those of my siblings.

"Imagine yourself smelling a rose."

Lavender's photographic memory conjures a picture-perfect rose on the screen while E. Gadd puts his nose to the part of the machine that transmits scent signals.

"Ah! A Mister Lincoln, no doubt! Fantastic!"

"Now imagine yourself tasting chocolate," I tell her.

Lavender smiles dreamily as what appears to be a Lindor truffle commercial plays on the screen. Fawful puts his tongue to the taste transmitter.

"AH! Is that 60 percent cocoa dark chocolate I am tasting?"

"Now imagine yourself petting a kitten."

The screen now shows Lavender's hands caressing a white kitten with blue eyes, a pink nose, and orange points – a Siamese of some sort. Gadd giggles as he grips the object that I had referred to as a "thingie", out of not having given it a name yet and not being able to think of a more creative title on the spot.

"HAHA! FANTASTIC! Why, it feels just like fur!"

I remove Lavender from the machine so that she can go judging the other contestants.

When the judges come around to Iggy, I creep under one of the tables to spy on them

Iggy wrings his hands together, a devious expression on his face. Laughter erupts almost involuntarily from his body.

"Hahahahahah…. THE SYNAPSE SWITCHER!"

Gadd says, "Fantastic… what does it do?"

"SWAPS BRAINS AHAHA! Wanna test it?"

"Eh, no thank you…"

"Neither I, a swapping is not what my brain is wanting!" says Fawful.

"I'll try it!" says Lavender.

"Hahaha looks like you're going to brain swap with ME! AHAHA!"

I feel that I should warn Lavender not to do this, for Iggy-like synapses are not something one wants in his or her skull for even the shortest period of time…

BOOM!

The machine blows up. Figures. My heart pounds in shocking sudden relief when I realize that both subjects appear to be OK. I laugh, though somewhat hoarsely, at my brother's wretched failure. He screams a scream that sounds half like a sob and half like… Lord only knows what.

The judges huddle into a circle to discuss their decisions, and then they ascend the stage to announce the winners. I feel somewhat disappointed that I had missed out on when they were roasting Eggy.

"Thank you all for participating," says Gadd. "With some deliberation, we have decided just who this year's winners are!

"Third place goes to Caramel Koopa (she had taken my last name out of not knowing her actual last name), for her ingenious spectroscope!"

Caramel walks with the grace of a pageant queen up to the stage to accept her bronze trophy, bronze medal, plaque, yellow 3rd-place ribbon and scholarship check (only 250 coins).

"Second place goes to Egglantine Benedictis, for her astounding software that can be used to navigate the interplanetary super highway!"

I snarl as Eggy giggles and smiles phonily while greedily clutching the plaque and the silver trophy with the red 2nd-place ribbon, silver medal, and 500-coin check in it. She had evaded scrutiny for her incomplete knowledge once again with her creepy little winning smile and false charms. I had really been hoping that Iggy would come through and take her down a notch.

Which makes me wonder… my project might have actually worked instead of blowing up in my face, but the judges had seen the posterboard and however ingenious his ideas might be; perhaps they had taken that into consideration rather than how the project actually worked, especially given that I wasn't my typical coolly charming self when they interviewed me? Clearly Iggy is hoping so, for he is shaking and panting in nervous anticipation as the judges draw out the time during which they shake hands and congratulate Eggy. I know that I wouldn't want to be passed over in favor of an inferior project over something as silly as a chance malfunction (although it probably says something about Iggy's abilities that his project malfunctioned so catastrophically…)

For the first time, my pulse pounds out of fear that I might not be first…

"And first prize, for a truly cutting-edge project that defies description, that we believe would be impressive even for a postdoc student's, goes to…"

Gadd takes a second to inhale; I now feel the effects of relativity stretching this second as my pulse pushes my mind to subliminal speed…

"Ludwig von Koopa."

My heart flutters in relief, my head dizzy, my feet feeling so light I felt I would trip as I nearly skip to the stage, only to have Iggy scream and grab me.

"MY PROJECT SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN AN AWARD! Ludwig, wouldn't you say that my project deserves an award? Huh?"

"I, uh, you never let me have a close enough look at it for me to know."

Iggy screams, holding on to my leg as I walk,

"What if I say that I made it explode on purpose?"

"And why would you do that, any fool can make something explode! Like they will believe that anyway…"

I kick him until he lets go. I try not to allow his insistence on making a scene to ruin my moment.

I now have thirteen gold trophies, thirteen gold medals, thirteen blue ribbons, thirteen plaques with my name (though some with the "v" in _von_ incorrectly capitalized) inscribed next to "first place", and thirteen scholarship checks worth 1000 coins, which I have vault up at the bank where they are safe from my father's foolish spending.

I grin wickedly as I am forced to shake hands with Eggy, and I purposely grip her hand a little too tight, pricking into it a little with my claws.

I gaze sadly at Iggy screaming and running around like a maniac, crunching on other students' boards until the school police are called upon to restrain him. It does not seem fair for him to be denied a place based on a technicality, and my moment is dampened knowing that I am perhaps only winning based on that.

Lavender steps up to make an announcement. "We are also happy to announce that two of the projects in this competition were of high enough caliber to qualify as candidates for this year's Frankenstein Prize at Frankenstein University. The first being, of course, Mister von Koopa's" She pinched and tweaked my cheek as she said this.

"The other candidate, you might think, would be Miss Benedictis, but I am sorry to say that her project is not quite up to Frankenstein U.'s standards, and I also have my doubts that it actually works, as well as certain other doubts that an acquaintance of mine has expressed…"

Hm. I suppose I did vent to her about Eggy at one point…

"Mister Iggy Hop Koopa's project did unfortunately suffer a catastrophic explosion, but I have looked at the blueprints and the abstract, and I must say, it definitely promises to be an incredible project! So Iggy gets to be the second candidate, if he can promise to build another one that won't explode by the time of the conference next month."

The school police, who were just about to drag Iggy out of the auditorium and probably to the psychiatric hospital (which he is taken to quite frequently, even more so after he became a genius) let him go, and he screamed and jumped in delight at being recognized.

I should be screaming and jumping in delight too. After all, the Frankenstein Prize is about the most prestigious scientific award that a nonresident of the "Real World" can earn. My uncle Wolfgang has won quite a few of them, as have Gadd and Fawful, but my inventions, despite being as good as or better than theirs, have always been ignored, perhaps because of my young age and lack of a doctorate.

And also, what SWEET JUSTICE! Eggy's smiley face begins to look strained as she congratulates me, this time the squeezing being applied to my palm. She might have earned second prize, and would probably have her father congratulate her by buying her an invitation to some exclusive science conference somewhere, but now she is finally, for the first time in her life, being told the truth – that her "research" is not quite up to Ph. D. standards, and probably, according to me at least, never will be. I could not have asked for a sweeter revenge.

But she doesn't matter now. All that matters are my brother and I, both of us being truly worthy and talented beyond all reasonable expectations or belief.

Now we will get to see who is REALLY the top genius, brother dear. Woo hoo hoo… hehehe…


	4. Barbarian Cream

**Dear You Know Who (you know who you are):**

**I know you are probably not reading this - hell, I KNOW for SURE you aren't reading this, because you are too "busy" and in your mind fanfiction is a waste of time and for immature folks like myself. Oh, and you probably don't even care that I exist, since you never met me in real life, and perhaps I am just one of many MANY people that you have pissed off that you are whining about. Anyway, just wanted to say, since neither you nor any of your cronies frequent this website, I'll bet, I can troll you as much on here as I want to, and never get caught. Pfft, like you could get me in trouble anyway. Go on, just try. Prove that you're more than just butthurt by what you call "cyberbullying". Prove that you are the target. Yeah, just pull that same stunt again and I will END YOU - figuratively speaking; I know you're itching to sue for death threats, but whatever, you're not reading this anyway. Hell I might just "END YOU" anyway. WOOHOOHOOWAHAHAHAMWAHAHAHAH!**

**Oh, and I KNOW that you're EVIL. Don't even try to pretend like you aren't.**

**Sincerely,**

**A crazy cosmic kitten who is smarter and more creative than you will ever be :3**

**Now readers:**

**Ooookay, ignore that, just had to vent and let it out, that's all. Confused? I'll bet, but you don't even want to know. If you REALLY want a clue, check my profile - never mind. Seriously. **

**Oh, and please don't be offended by anything that Iggy says – he is crazy and has no manners or sense of how to behave around others. **

**Oh, and I feel the need to say right now: This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. **

**You heard me. COINCIDENTAL.**

**Enough now. On with the story.**

"So we are in Germany right?"

Iggy and I have just arrived at the lush green hilltop surrounded by black coniferous forests, eternally snowcapped mountaintops, and ethereal swirls of fog where the castle that is home to Frankenstein University has been built. The architecture is something to behold, being a hybrid of Gothic and Mӓrchenkӧnig influences; basically, the fairy-tale castle after having been remodeled by Dracula.

"Yes. Bavaria, to be exact."

"So this is where the barbarians came from!" Iggy snickers manically at this thought.

I sigh. "No, Iggy, Bavarian and barbarian are two completely different things."

"But the Nazis were barbarians right?"

"Yes, I guess you could say they were…"

"And the Nazis used to live here right?"

FACEPALM.

"Wooow, so the people that live here are the children and grandchildren of Nazis," Iggy said with a note of demented fascination in his voice.

"IGGY, QUIT SAYING THAT! YOU ARE INSULTING THE GERMAN PEOPLE! YOU CAN BE ARRESTED FOR THAT YOU KNOW!"

Iggy snickers, then drops to roll around on the hilltop laughing his ass off. He was put on a highly toxic drug that is reserved only as a last resort for extreme cases during his latest visit to the psych ward following his episode at the science fair, but I honestly believe that they ought to increase the dosage size.

"What do you care, I thought you were Austrian anyway."

I will end the discussion here. I really should not enlighten him on Austria's history with his current topic of fascination.

As we enter the castle, Iggy spins around and gapes in awe.

"Wooow, what a pretty castle! I can't believe it was built by N-"

I clamp my claw over Iggy's mouth. I swear, if he says the N word again…

"_Wilkommen._ I am Hildegard Keiner, and I am the chancellor here at Frankenstein University."

The chancellor is a thin gray-haired human lady, probably in her sixties, with thick glasses and an air of primness and arrogance about her. Quite atypical for a university that is known for being full of kooks, but then again a kook would probably not have the ability nor the desire for a dull position such as chancellor.

"_Guten tag, ich bin _Ludwig von Koopa_."_ I shake Hildegard's hand.

"Hiya, my name is Iggy Hop Koopa," Iggy says, sticking his hand out to shake hers. "Were your parents by any chance members of the N-"

I once again cover up his mouth. "Please ignore my brother if he says anything that you find derogatory. He does not mean to offend anyone; he just doesn't have any manners, you see, he is recovering from eleven years of mental retardation, and he also suffers from slight – ahem, EXTREME mania. And that is not even the worst of his problems…"

Hildegard laughs. "Then he ought to fit right in. Come, I'll show you to your room."

The dorm resembles a cozy sort of dungeon laboratory, but in miniature. Just like the dorm I slept in during my stay here. Iggy begins bouncing on the bed and yelping as though he is in pain when he is really in an ecstatic mood.

"They sure know how to make good bouncy beds, those-"

I grab Iggy by the neck and shove him down to the stone floor. "You had better stop it, or I will brand a swastika to your forehead and take you all the way up to Berlin and throw you into a crowd and watch, laughing, as they tear you apart. You got that?"

"Geez, they would really do that? What bar-"

I lift Iggy's head and bang it back onto the floor. "If they don't, then I will. GOT IT?"

"Ok ok…" he gasps through my tight hold on his throat. I loosen it and he goes back to jumping on the bed.

"By the way, I checked, and that bed was made in Norway."

"Norway huh? Isn't that were the Vikings used to live? They were big-time barbarians too, weren't they?"

I throw a pillow at him. Next time, it will be a fireball.

…

In the very early morning, I take Iggy out to a nearby town. Iggy screams enthusiastically at the splendid architecture that he had never seen the likes of before, while I tell him to hush, since many of the inhabitants are still sleeping. At least he isn't being derogatory anymore…

I stop dead in my tracks.

My hand tightens around Iggy's as he continues to prance in place.

It jolts me in the gut. Something is not right. About Iggy.

Yes, there is always something not right about Iggy. But I had gotten to where I could predict his unpredictability, to some extent.

But now several things were up with him that I could not predict. For instance, I might have expected him to make narrow-minded and insulting comments about the people of Germany and even Norway, except that I didn't expect him to be that historically aware. He is an ace in science, that's all; he can recite the Schrӧdinger equation verbatim and apply it in his work, but he could not explain who Schrӧdinger is or what country he came from, or what year he came up with that equation or how he came up with it. Honestly, he probably didn't even know that Schrӧdinger was a person – I do not think he even knew that Einstein was a person. Needless to say he wouldn't know any nonscientific factoids such as ones about the Vikings or those other barbarians that he wants so badly to yap about…

Well, I could always chalk that up to him actually paying attention in school, although his ADHD is probably too out of control to do much of that regardless of intelligence, or perhaps he is studying on the sly for some secret purpose that he does not want me to know about…

Yes, Iggy would be just the type to do that. That also might explain his sudden fascination with Bavarian architecture… an act! A cover-up for his plot to get revenge on the one who has beaten him in the science fair! Perhaps he suspected that I was responsible for his latest invention's catastrophic malfunction?

Or perhaps these were nothing more than sick and twisted ploys to distract me and cause me to screw up and somehow lose the Frankenstein Prize?

I know a sick and twisted plot when I see one. I had MASTERED sick and twisted plots before his egg was even hatched! And I simply will NOT let him get to me.

I unexpectedly catch myself giggling when I find a coffee shop – that is OPEN! At this early hour? Excellent!

I drag Iggy in, and he happily bounces in. Strange. I was expecting him to claw the ground and scream while I dragged him in – not because he hates coffee, but because he does that randomly when he is taken to places, and right now felt in my gut like the random time that it would happen.

My gut becomes queasy. Perhaps I should ignore it – how unscientific of me to allow the reptilian brain to take over!

But of course I know from past experience that taking Iggy into a coffee shop is a BAD idea. So I watch him, my left eye straining in its socket to keep him in my vision range as my right eye focuses on the person currently working here.

This person happens to be a Koopa, which somehow delights me, although he is probably not a close relative of mine. I am further delighted by what I see on the menu.

This place appears to be a very classy place, though not as large or as classy as a Viennese coffeehouse. Just from smelling the atmosphere, I can tell how fine, fresh, strong and richly caffeinated the coffee here is. I shall treat this German Koopa and preparer of excellent beverages with the respect that I seldom afford to the workers at the Shellz and Shellbucks establishments that litter Dark Land.

I order a large _cappuccino oscuro_ with orgeat, a flavoring I had not had in quite a while – tasting of sweet almond mixed with rose water, it is perhaps too sophisticated a flavor for even Shellbucks, for all of their faux sophistication that they are so haughty about.

When the Koopa asks me what sort of beans I would like, I request the Viennese roasted _Robusta_. He walks over to the dispenser where the requested beans are stored, and I run over there in a panic.

I closely observe the beans for any foreign objects that might be present…

"Look out!" I leap up to the counter and dive into the cup that my coffee beans were scooped into. I SWEAR that I saw a small pale tablet of some sort in the mix!

I claw through the beans, scattering them all over the floor, until I find what I was looking for – a small, unusually pale-colored _coffee bean_.

"My apologies, most honorable civil servant, I thought I saw something that, uh, was not supposed to be in there. You will receive compensation and a gracious tip for this.

"Oh, and by the way, is it OK if I watch you prepare the coffee? I'm, ehem, rather paranoid about how my beverages are prepared, to be honest. And you will receive an even larger tip."

The Koopa obliges without the least complaint, and I watch him with one eye as he grinds and pressurizes the beans through the espresso maker, and out of the other eye I watch Iggy.

He is simply standing still, rocking back and forth on his feet, humming. Strange; I would have expected him to be running around tapping everything and making silly noises and laughing for every object that he tapped – how do I even know this? How can I be that attuned to Iggy's thoughts and behavior? We might both be insane geniuses but we are nonetheless _completely different_!

I listen to his humming while the Koopa draws patterns with the steamed milk. Is it just me or is he humming… no, it can't be; he hates that song…

I sit down with my cappuccino and begin to sip it, reveling in how the almond and the rose flavors strangely but beautifully complement each other. _Perfection._ Plus the exquisite, nostalgic flavor of Viennese roast, makes for perfection squared.

Meanwhile, Iggy shouts out in his shrill, gargly voice, "CAN I HAVE A BARBARIAN CREAM DOUGHNUT?"

The Koopa apparently does not understand English. I tell him what Iggy wants in German (correcting his mistake in pronunciation of course) and he explains to me that they do not serve Bavarian cream doughnuts – or Bavarian cream anything, for that matter.

I expect Iggy to either scream in disappointment, or run out of the coffee shop, or some combination of the two. Instead, he walks over to sit next to my seat and stare into my coffee.

"You don't need Bavarian cream anyway; it contains liqueur, which you certainly don't need." _Mein Gott,_ a drunken Iggy… "And the custard that they fill doughnuts with is not even real Bavarian cream."

I turn my head down and see that Iggy's got his finger in my coffee. I smack him and instead of yelping he turns his face upward to stare at me.

"May I please have a sip?"

"No, go get your own…" What was also strange was that Iggy did not order a coffee here; since becoming a genius he has discovered coffee and become almost as crazy about caffeine as I am. Not that I wanted him to become even more manic and hyperactive than he already is…

I raise my mug for a sip but I barely foam my lips before I do a double-take. Was it just me or has the steamed milk, which was originally swirled artistically into a floral pattern, taken the form of a… swirl?

Iggy dips his claw back into my coffee and makes an outward clockwise swirling motion from the center, then an inward counterclockwise swirling motion from the edge. He stares up at me, holding his glasses in his other hand while shaking it.

"May I please have a sip?"


	5. The Bean

Iggy follows me back to Frankenstein University, repeating, "may I please have a sip?" like a broken record, even though I had already finished my coffee, having lapped the foam off in haste to avoid the appearance of another steamed milk omen, despite knowing how unwise it is to drink anything after Iggy had his finger in it but having too strong a craving for European-style luxuries to resist.

Our projects had been locked up in a conference room, but they are going to open it up today so that we can show off our projects to each other, discuss them with each other, and set up poster boards for the judging committee that would be judging tomorrow. Iggy is still dancing around in circles, asking the same question...

"May I please have a sip? May I please have a sip? May I please have a..."

Scary. Iggy has had a number of psychiatric ailments in the past, but I do not recall him ever suffering from... this affliction... I forget what it's called, or if it even has a name...

It is still very early. I am bored, having no instrument to play or invention to work on. I comb my mind for theories to work on, and become sort of lost, feeling barely conscious, in the mechanisms of my thoughts...

"NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

I yelp and fall down on my back, nearly hitting my head on the bouncy Norwegian mattress. Iggy had awakened me from my trance, and was now laughing, as though scaring the wits out of someone by screaming could still be funny after the nth time (n being a number that is unspecified but quite large in the context it is being used in). Well, at least it was something other than "may I please have a sip?"...

I'll just go to the library. I recall that this school's library is open 24/7, unlike most university libraries. Iggy, if he followed me here, would be thrown out for being too noisy. Perhaps I'll even find some excellent articles on recent research for me to catch up on - cannot allow the inferior minds that like to pretend to be scientists to receive too much prestige, can I?

The candles inside the library have not yet been lit, so the only light in the entire place is creeping in from the dawn skies through the slits in the windowblinds. This is plenty enough light for me, being very much accustomed to vision in semidarkness.

I look through the books on the physics shelf. Rubbish, rubbish, more rubbish... I suppose that I shouldn't complain, considering that there was nothing at the Mushroom Kingdom Academy's library that even remotely interested me, but all I see so far are books on basic principles and biographies and books meant to explain String Theory in a way that middle schoolers can understand - how do they even allow this garbage at this most esteemed of institutions?

"Hello, Ludwig!"

AUGH! THAT VOICE!

I turn around and who should I see other than that creeper... Eggy, her tongue wrapped around the straw of a cardboard coffee cup (as usual; she is almost as bad of a caffeine addict as I am, though not nearly as much of a "coffee snob", as she calls herself). I compose myself to appear prim, cool, and intimidatingly erudite.

"Whatever would you be doing here, Egglantine? After all, there are plenty of other postsecondary institutions that are better suited for your abilities. Shouldn't you be touring the Mushroom Kingdom's junior colleges?"

"Not likely." Eggy giggled. "Daddy took me here so that I could see if I like this school, get some good espresso and check out the technology and other cool stuff here while he judges the Frankenstein Prize candidates!"

WHAT? This is completely uncalled for! Her father would likely be biased against the student who prevents his precious from winning first place every year, and perhaps his brother as well. How did he ever get the honor of judging here anyway? He is not even THAT great of a scientist...

"Maybe someday I will win the Frankenstein Prize!"

Not while I'm alive. Eggy prances away, but then turns around and runs back.

"I almost forgot THESE!"

She pulled out a pair of glasses that she had left on the book shelf. Odd; I had thought she preferred contacts. I gaze at the glasses for the split second before she dashes off, noting how much they _glare_, almost as if they were an opaque object...

The glare shrinks away, in a sort of whirlpool...

My eyes shut themselves halfway, my head tilting, my mind a whirlpool...

I snap awake. Eggy is gone.

It's... merely... I dig through my brain for some sort of explanation that I might have read about long ago... a very mild panic attack, that's all... never had a panic attack before though... or... IGGY must have spiked my drink!

I... must bury myself into some stimulating book. Perhaps Nanotechnology Quarterly will suffice...

"GREETINGS KID THAT HAS GENIUS!"

The magazine in my hands flies into the air. Fawful, from his jet-powered hovercraft, reaches his hands - _his hands_ - from outside of his cloak to grab it.

I am embarrassed to admit that, prior to this moment, I did not know that the Beanish people had hands.

"Wooo, there are lots of articles here that are interesting," Fawful muses, his face hidden completely behind the magazine. I try to figure out what his accent is. Sounds like a mixture of Chinese, Japanese, and... maybe I was imagining a hint of Viennese...

"So, kid, are you full of ecstasy at finally getting to meet the great Lord Fawful in the actual flesh that is beany?"

"Why would I be?" I ask as coolly as I can manage, not wanting to seem scared, lest he takes me for an easy target for terrorizing, nor impudent, knowing that he is a psychopath who angers easily. But to be honest, I feel rather uneasy about being in the same room as this maniac who had betrayed my father on quite a few occasions.

"Well, your brother that also has genius seemed to be filled with glee that is gleeful!"

Of course. Fawful is Iggy's idol.

"Yes, you know, my brother was actually a mental invalid before I subjected him to Geniusification."

"Geniusification, you say? Why did you not enter that into the science fair?"

"Well, because I had built that months ago, and I like to create a new project for each science fair."

Fawful grins giddily. "Yeah, well, you know, the vote that was mine was placed by me on Iggy for the prize that was first. But something such as a Geniusificator would to me seem even more impressive than the switcher that switches synapses!"

I sense it. Genius envy.

"I shall inform you right now, Lord Fawful, I would wager that my brother is a good deal crazier than you are. So, if you even THINK about pulling anything funny before the Frankenstein Prize is awarded... not threatening you, just warning you, for the intricacy of my brother's convoluted plans makes your plans look like children's coloring book mazes."

That... came out odd. Almost like something Fawful would say...

"He hardly seems like one that is good at devious plot making that is devious."

"Heh, exactly."

"Well, I shall be the one who will be winning the prize that is Frankenstein! Furururururururu..."

His speech, with its awkward passive voice and excessive wordiness, is beyond aggravating to listen to.

"So, would you mind sharing with me what exactly your project is about? I have every right to know, since you already know the full details of my project."

Fawful's green lima fingers thumped over the edges of the magazine he was holding. "My project is TOP SECRET, THAT'S WHAT!"

Fawful threw the magazine down from his face and shoved his face into mine. His glasses were so close that they appeared blurred until my eyes adjusted to their short distance.

They were painted with swirls. Just like the pair that Iggy used to wear. The swirls were stiff, unmoving swirls. I focused, mesmerized to them, until they DID begin to swirl.

My eyes rotated to follow the swirls. They roll round and round in my head, until my ocular muscles ache and my temples throb. My eyelids try to blink, but they are held open by what feels like a magnetic field between them. Slowly, in my dimmed brain, the horror sets in...

I yank my face away from his gaze, feeling as though my eyeballs are magnets being pulled away from another magnet, almost as though they are being ripped out of their sockets. I run out of the library at a blinding, caffeinated pace.

I stop after I turn the first corner down the hallway. I catch my breath and blink my eyes to make sure that I can still see. My eyes had been shocked out of their vision either by the pull of Fawful's vortical lenses or by pure terror, but my vision was dimly coming back to my dizzy head. I turn my head around and come too slow to the realization that Fawful is hot on my trail.

I hide inside my shell and kick myself forward with a spinning motion so that I slide like a hockey puck down the hallway. I carefully aim myself to bounce off the walls and not to knock any of the furniture or decorations down. With one last carefully calculated move I ricochet myself into my bedroom, where I close the door with a mighty slam once inside.

"I-Iggy...?"

Iggy was in bed. Unusual. I tap his shell and instead of screaming like he normally does, he slowly awakens. I wince as he sticks his head out, but, although his eyes have unusually constricted pupils and a glazed expression, the glasses are not swirling.

"What's the matter, Ludwig? Did you get attacked by Nazis?"

I was too scared to get angry at him for this remark. I stare, relieved, into the shiny, smooth glare of his glasses. They reflect nothing but the ceiling and the walls... and the doorknob... and these little whirlpool looking things...

Whirlpools? SWIRLS? I snap into alertness and find that there is a demented smile beneath the reflected swirls.

How did he get in here? I do not care at the moment. I pick up Iggy and toss him as HARD as I can at the legume's face.

Iggy SCREAMS. LOUD.

"Sshh-Iggy, what's the matter? People are sleeping!"

Iggy appears to be all right. Fawful, on the other hand, had been hit in the face by the spiked back of Iggy's shell, and the dreaded glasses had been smashed into fragments that cut into his face, which oozes a fluid that resembles split pea soup.

"What is with the screaming?"

I clench my fists, glowering at Iggy. His screaming had woken Hildegard Keiner up! And when the chancellor comes up here and sees what I did to Fawful...

"WHAT THE BLAZES DID YOU TWO DO TO FAWFUL?"

"I didn't do anything!" Iggy says, panicking. He pushes me in front of himself. "Ludwig here picked me up and threw me at Lord Fawful! He's crazy, and it hurt so I screamed!"

"I... He's right." I had to admit. I freaked out over something as ridiculous as a pair of googling SPECTACLES. My eyes still hurt from the close encounter. I lay my hands on the dresser, throw my head back as far as I can, and throw it forward to slam into the dresser.

Hildegard catches me by the hair before my head hits the target. "I'm afraid that you are not well in the head at the moment, Mister von Koopa. Come, I shall show you to the nurse's office."

I take Hildegard's hand but Iggy pulls me back by my other hand. "LOOK OUT! You've really done it this time! You are headed for a three day stay at the local LOONY BIN!"

"That's ridiculous," Hildegard says. "We aren't going to send you to a 'loony bin'."

Iggy shakes his head and waves his arms like the lunatic that he is as Hildegard takes me away. "SHE LIES!"

The police are called, and it is then that I realize that Iggy was right. I fight and claw and bite and blow fire until the cops cuff me into a straitjacket and toss me roughly into the back seat.


	6. Zarcolex

I cannot believe it.

But then I suppose I should wonder why, all things considered, I had not wound up at one of these places already.

It is the _Oberbayern Psychiatrische Klinik_ (Upper Bavarian Psychiatric Hospital), within walking distance from the Austrian border near Salzburg, the same place where my Onkel Wolfgang had been taken to on nearly a daily basis back when he was a professor at Frankenstein University, at least until he was fired for that exact reason.

Because I have stopped struggling with confinement, the police free me from the straitjacket and walk me behind the bars to the building's chilled interior.

The first thing they do is remove all valuables - coins, electronics and objects that might choke or puncture me - from my shell, bag it up in a paper bag with my name on it, and lock it up in a safe.

Then I am brought to a doctor's office. After a nurse takes my blood pressure, I am seen by the doctor, who is a thin, balding human with round black-rimmed glasses who speaks Central Bavarian dialect.

"So you are Ludwig von Koopa, is that correct?"

"_Prinz_ Ludwig von Koopa," I correct him.

The doctor scribbles some notes over his clipboard. "Delusions...of...grandeur..."

"So, Mister von Koopa, are you hearing voices?"

"No."

"Do you feel suicidal?"

"No."

"Do you feel like you want to hurt anybody or yourself?"

"No." Under normal circumstances, these questions would be very offensive to ask. Even now I feel offended at being asked such questions.

"So, do you know why you were sent here?"

"I, uh, threw my brother."

"And why did you throw your brother?"

"He was the only weapon I had handy."

"And why would you use your brother as a weapon?"

"Somebody was behind me."

"Was this somebody an actual person?"

"Yes."

"Was this person holding a weapon of some sort or in any way threatening to hurt you?"

"I... think..."

"You think."

"...well..." I do not wish to get into the real reason why I was afraid of this person.

"Are you on any medications?"

"No."

"Have you ever been on any medications?"

"...a few when I was younger... for ADHD and behavior management, but the psychiatrist said I didn't need them anymore..."

"Have you ever taken Zarcolex?"

Great. Already trying to push pills down my throat.

"No, what is that?"

"It's supposed to calm you down so you'll feel better and reduce your rage tendencies."

Euphemistic terminology for the effects of antipsychotic sedatives. "No thank you."

"Just try it."

"I-I have a history of adverse reactions to antipsychotic medications in the past..."

"Do you have the documentation?"

"...no..." Truth is, my issues with antipsychotic medications have NOT been documented.

"Well, please take the Zarcolex. It is the safest and mildest that we've got, and it will help you to feel better."

"Fine..." I grudgingly place the soft yellow tablet into my mouth.

"Just hold it under your tongue and let it dissolve for a minute or two..."

"You do realize that I am nominated for the Frankenstein Prize, and I have to be back there by tonight."

"I'm afraid that going back to the university tonight is not an option."

"But I don't want to miss out on winning the award!"

"You won't. It is not uncommon for Frankenstein students and faculty to be sent here for psychiatric treatment, so the university has made it their policy to delay the awarding of the prize should one of the nominees become a patient here. As a matter of fact, we have actually had a patient here who was a nominee and had stayed here for the day that the prize was supposed to have been awarded, and this patient actually won the prize that year."

Who else would that be but my _Onkel_.

"Well, please tell me that I will be out soon..."

"Just relax and take it easy, Mister von Koopa. Think of it as a vacation. You seem like a very intelligent and ambitious young man, and you are probably over stressed. Your brain probably needs a rest, that's all."

"My brain does not need a rest! My brain never takes a rest! And even if it did, this is hardly the appropriate place to have such a vacation!"

"Here, let me show you to the ER where you will be staying with the other patients on suicide watch."

He leads me to an overly sanitized common room that is barren except for some cafeteria-style tables, hard plastic seats shaped like easy chairs but far less comfortable, magazines that are probably outdated and limited to material about housekeeping and gardening, and an oversized television set displaying the news from that one channel that repeats the same news all day long, placed behind a glass window so that the patients cannot turn it off or change the channel. Oh and there are doors to the patient's bedrooms, to the bathrooms, and to the kitchen, which is a tiny room with a refrigerator and cabinets that can be seen through the window where the television is kept behind. And a window to a barren backyard with three-meter high brick walls surrounding it. The air is cold, colder than the air outside, even under shade from the sunshine, probably due to air conditioning, as though the management believed in some medieval myth that cold air is good behavioral treatment for the mentally deranged.

This is worse than I thought. Worse than the stories Onkel had told me. Worse even than that wretched Happy Homes Children's Center that my siblings and I were forced to stay at the time CPS got nosy about the familial affairs of the Koopa family. I run back toward the door, but the doctor immediately slams it, locked, in my face.

For several minutes I hyperventilate in front of the magazine shelf, watching the other patients with horror.

A few of them are sitting at the table, dressed in hospital gowns, eating the remains of their breakfast, which appeared to be most unappetizing.

"May we please have some juice?" asks the patient standing next to me, a short middle-aged human woman with glasses, holding a milk carton. She takes a small sip out of the milk carton and takes a few small, jittery steps in a circle.

"May we please have some juice?"

And so she does, over and over again, unable to stop or say anything else or respond to her environment. What a frightful condition. I duck my head into my shell, as though afraid that her condition is catching.

The nurses walk in and out, rudely ignoring the patients' questions, wanting to spend as little time in this _Narrenturm_ as possible. We are, after all, mentally ill lunatics; what we think does not matter.

"May we please have some juice?"

"No, we are all out of juice," said the nurse who pushed past that patient on her way back out of the ER, too ignorant to know that this patient is not really asking for juice but rather exhibiting the same sort of catatonic behavior that Iggy was when he had been constantly asking if he could please have a sip.

Or rather, the same catatonic behavior Iggy had been putting on...

I observe her for a while, and after some interaction with other nurses her spiel changes to "May we please have some juice or milk."

I get bored and my thoughts turn to panic. All of this happening, being here of all places when I should be at my alma mater going down in history as the youngest ever to win that prize... it is all just too much. I just want to scream and bang my head into a wall.

"I WANT OUT OF HERE!" I roar. "I AM A GENIUS AND I DO NOT DESERVE TO BE LOCKED UP AND TREATED LIKE A COMMON LUNATIC! I AM PRETTY SURE THAT THIS IS A VIOLATION OF MY RIGHTS! I HAVE A FRANKENSTEIN PRIZE TO WIN AND I AM GOING OUT OF MY MIND HERE AND THIS IS A MOST UNSUITABLE WAY TO TREAT THE MENTALLY ILL! I CANNOT STAND TO EVEN WASTE ONE HOUR HERE LET ALONE THE FULL 72! AND THAT VERDAMMT PILL IS NOT WORKING, IF ANYTHING IT'S MAKING ME FEEL WORSE!"

Indeed, I am feeling worse. Moodwise, I feel more enraged than I normally would. But my body is becoming slow and uncoordinated, as though my bones suddenly became heavy . I feel somewhat dizzy, as I had after Fawful had terrorized me with the swirls.

And then, somehow, it all clicks inside my semi-zombified mind. FAWFUL must be behind this!

Yes, this must have been the sick bean's plan all along, to terrify me out of my wits so I would do something to wind up HERE. But doing so is only serving to stall, not to throw me out of the competition, as he is undoubtedly planning to do. I can only wonder what step two to his twisted scheme is...

I ask the nurses walking in and out until one of them agrees to show me to my assigned bedroom. It is a barren room, similar to my room at Happy Homes but smaller, with two beds, one of them with my roommate passed out on it.

The sheets are coarse, probably woven from starched cotton rather than the fine linen I am used to. The pillowcase conceals a plastic-wrapped package, horrifyingly similar to the pillow I rested my head upon at Happy homes. The yarn afghan that serves as my only comforter is hardly sufficient for providing suitable warmth for a good night's - or day's as this case may be - sleep.

It is not hard falling asleep under the effects of the Zyco - the Zyprex - whatever that medication is called. My last thoughts are on how I must make sure not to sleep for too long lest they determine me to be morbidly depressed and in need of a longer period of "treatment", and, as I slip into the first stage of sleep, how Fawful alone cannot be responsible for this.

Why, only Iggy knows what the swirls do to me...

Oh and E. Gadd too...

Yeah, they all have it in for me, Fawful and Iggy and Gadd... well not Lavender; she is as much of a do-gooder as her cousin Princess Daisy, not to mention obsessively infatuated with me.

Yeeeaaahhh...

I wake up a... actually, I do not know how long I have been asleep. I see that my roommate is still asleep. I step outside of the bedroom and see that the sky is still lit outside, though exactly how bright cannot be determined, for the walls are high and the sun is overcast by stratus clouds of white. So a few hours at least, given how unusually clear for alpine weather it had been this morning.

I still wonder what time it is. The designers of this place obviously did not feel that the mentally ill had any need to know what time it is, and thus neglected to add any sort of clock. And of course anybody who was wearing a watch would have had it confiscated.

"May we please have some juice and milk."

"May we please have some juice and milk."

The catatonic woman is still at it. Her behavior is sort of... hypnotizing. I ask:

"What time is it?"

"What time is it?"

"What time is it?"

I should perhaps stop. It is probably not wise to interfere with this woman's behavior in her state.

"What time is it?"

"May we please have some juice and milk."

"What time is it?"

"May we please have some juice and milk."

"What time is it?"

"May we please have some juice and milk."

"What time is it?"

"What time is it."

I stop. Her echolalic babbling has changed to mimic mine.

The door opens, and the psychiatrist I recognize from this morning enters. I stare up into the glare on his lenses, as if they were time pieces, and I once again ask,

"What time is it?"

The echolalia woman turns around, her lenses equally shiny. She too asks,

"What time is it."

We both look at the psychiatrist and ask,

"What time is it?"

The psychiatrist ought to know what time it is...

His glasses seem to be getting shinier. Or maybe it's just getting darker, while the glare on them remains just as bright?

And so the doctor opens his mough to say:

"What time is it."

"What time is it."

The crazy woman turns toward me. Together they both stare me down, saying rather than asking,

"What time is it."

I stare deep into their glasses, which are nearly opaque by now from the steadily intensifying glare. Damn it, I REALLY want to know what time it is!

"What time is it."

"What time is it."

The glare is not that bright, but everything else in the room seems to be getting darker.

No, not darker... _blurrier_...

No, not blurring... everything is stretching. Like all of the shapes in my visual field are being stretched into one long rope like taffy...

My visual field becomes narrower from side to side, but stretches out from top to bottom. Incredible. It's like the two people I am looking at are becoming taller and farther away...

The only things that stay the same are the glasses glares. They do not stretch or move or get farther away, they just stay where they are to start with.

And then the taffy rope widens and swells into a circle. Amazing. It looks almost normal again, except that everything is not where it's supposed to be...

Every thing is upside down... no, inverted... no duplicated and made skinnier? And turned on the side?

The glares from the glasses begin to get with the program. Aahh, now I see...

My visual field is now one big whirlpool. A swirl.

Ahaha, those damn sneaky swirls. It feels like my brain is turning somersaults in my cranium. That can't be good. Wouldn't it have to disconnect from the brain stem to do that?

Or maybe my eyes are spinning around. Hahaha, they are just going to twist and twist until the optic nerve snaps from the tension of being so twisted. Damn it I hope the swirl starts turning in the other direction...

Yeah I should be terrified, haha. But NOOOOPE!

Yeah and they call that an antipsychotic... what was that really, lysergic acid diethylamide?

My last shred of sense pulls through and causes me to purposely crash face-first into the floor, with the hope of passing out.


	7. A Plot

My head crashes to the floor, and I feel the sudden shock of my fall being stopped.

On my pillow.

I am in the same room that I fell asleep in. Apparently my last waking had been nothing more than a Zarcolex-induced nightmare.

Zarcolex combined with whatever Iggy might have slipped into my cappuccino, perhaps.

Perhaps it was whatever Iggy is being treated with - the toxic drug, what is it called... Lithiüb...

Perhap's THAT'S what's making Iggy act strange... for Iggy.

Perhaps I should get out of bed before they diagnose me with depression.

And eat whatever slop they serve before they diagnose me with anorexia.

Dinner is brought out from the locked kitchen, on ugly plastic trays. We get mushy spaghetti (does _al dente_ mean anything to them?), garlic bread that had clearly been greased with margarine instead of real butter, fruit cups for dessert (I am sorry, but canned pears soaked in slimy high fructose corn syrup is NOT a dessert! I'd rather eat stale _Sachertorte_ - by a LONG shot!) and the choice of milk, orange or apple juice in cartons. Miss "May we please have some juice or milk?" should be pleased. I look around, but it appears that she is gone. Probably transported to a long-term mental facility.

I dump the food and when the staff ask me later if I had eaten dinner I reply with "_ja_".

The service here is MOST unsatisfactory! I thought that they were supposed to treat me, not warehouse me to make me even crazier! And in an icebox, at that!

At least I am not screaming or threatening to bash my head into a wall anymore. But I keep away from any staff that appear out of the corner of my eye to be wearing glasses.

I constantly ask the nurses for counseling, and to let me go, but they ignore me. I So for the rest of the evening I sit in a chair pretending to be reading a newspaper, solve some kind of Euler square puzzle that the publication referred to as "sudoku" (in five minutes, on 6 stars difficulty) and plot what to do when they discharge me.

So Iggy is either drugged or up to something, Fawful has it in for me, and Eggy is here because her father is judging the contest...

I then remember... her father was at one time CEO for Siemens AG!

Which is located here in Bavaria!

A company that has a history with... curse me for saying this... the _Nazis_.

Iggy was ON to something... and he was warning me...

The neo-Nazis are out to steal our inventions and use them to purge the Real World of all Koopas and other inhabitants whose ancestors migrated from another world...

And Eggy? She is not really a Yoshi, BUT a human who had been TRANSFORMED into a Yoshi to spy on us Mushroom World (which Father hopes to change to Dark World) inhabitants.

And the googly glasses? Fawful was NOT the perpetrator but a VICTIM!

I ponder the matter all night (there was no possibility of sleeping, for the nurses invaded my bedroom every few hours to check my blood pressure, and they never gave me another dose of Zarcolex or any other drug - some psych ward, whose staff cannot even remember to DRUG their patients!).

In the morning I open the sack that contains my breakfast. Milk, juice, fruit cup, and unsweetened cereal. I trade my cereal with another patient who got cinnamon sugar cereal.

My hair is a mess, but I refuse to shower, fearful that the water temperature might not be to my liking (I like my water HOT, lukewarm is like ice to me, and if the temperature that this place is refrigerated at is any indication...)

I make it my business to nag and nag and NAG the staff until they finally allow me to sign the discharge papers.

Out in one day. Not bad at all.

They take me in a taxi, and I ask them to take me to the border so I can visit Salzburg - BEAUTIFUL city, Mozart's birthplace (which the residents are VERY PROUD of) and I could stock up on _Mozartkugeln_ and perhaps shop for some gifts for my siblings - after all, what kind of brother would I be if I went to a foreign country and didn't send back lavish souvenirs?

But, even as I carried on with my shopping and sightseeing, I never let go of the most important thing that I have to remember.

_Eggy must die._


	8. LIAR

So I spend a good portion of the day in Salzburg, shopping for presents that I carefully select to suit my siblings' desires and interests, gobble down as many _Mozartkugeln_ as I can stomach, have some excellent _Tafelspitz_ at one of Salzburg's finest restaurants, and take a taxi back to Bavaria. I ride it all the way to the splendid and highly liveable city of Munich, to complete my shopping - and to follow through with the plan.

Munich - or _München _in German. The childhood home of Albert Einstein - and the adulthood home of Adolf Hitler.

I decide that I might as well mail the presents while I'm there, since it would be a pain to hold on to them for the duration of my plan. I decide to hang on to the _Sachertorte_, however. I want to see the looks on their faces when they first bite into it - they will be forever spoiled for Dark Land-made cake! And also to make sure that that cake fiend Morton does not hog more than his fair share.

I must remain out of sight, for I am still at the mental hospital as far as they know, and will be until the day after tomorrowby .

Which gives me a good deal of time to enjoy the day in the city, go sightseeing, until I reach my last stop, in the dead of night.

I stare at the skyscraper, its modern appearance in stark contrast to much of _München's_ historical architecture, with a mixture of wonder, disgust and awe.

Siemens Headquarters.

A company that had profited on the blood of millions of innocents.

Nazi Germany would not have been without the greed of companies such as this one, ever ready to accept whatever grim task handed by the government for the sake of profit.

Had this company denied support to Hitler's regime, it would not be the wealthy, powerful multinational conglomerate that it is today.

But that little tidbit is irrelevant, for all of that Nazi _Scheisse_ (pardon my vulgarity) is all in the past.

Or is it?

I use the lock-picking mechanism I had built during the taxi ride to open the gate and the front door to the building. Wishing to be on guard for an advanced security system, I had also built in a security system disablement feature that figures out how to turn the infrared laser network off.

And also how to turn the lights and elevator on.

I take the elevator to the very top story, where I will sit and wait for the rest of the night. I had guzzled down six cups of fine strong coffee during my trip to Salzburg, so I should not have any problem keeping awake or alert.

As I wait for the day to dawn, I leaf through some magazines, and I find out about all of the scandals and bribes that Siemens has committed recently.

Why am I not surprised?

I turn all of the lights off just before dawn cracks. Which is quite fortunate, for the building opens early.

THEY will come up here. I am sure of it.

And they do.

But they are not the only ones.

I enter one of the cabinets and hide inside my shell. I shall listen to their conversations, their plotting, and anybody who opens the cabinet will be stabbed with an injection of my not-yet-patented instant retrograde amnesia-inducing formula.

I hear Eggy chitchatting with her father's former coworkers. She feigns interest in the research and developments they are conducting. Or maybe she is genuinely interested; personally, I have no such interest, for their technology is well behind mine, but then so is Eggy's.

Her German is surprisingly proficient.

As the day draws on, I grow impatient. I need to catch Eggy alone at some point!

Then the moment happens that she asks to use the bathroom.

I burst out of the cabinet and skid my shell out of the room, knowing the workers are far too busy to notice, if anything, more than a blur.

Once in the hallway, I pop out of my shell and open the girl's bathroom.

I hide in one of the empty stalls and watch Eggy's pair of feet, waiting for them to exit the stall so I can as well.

When she does, I burst out to block the entrance.

"Ludwig? What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be at the psychi - I mean, the university?"

Too late. She slipped.

"Maybe. Aren't you supposed to be unaware that I was at the psychi - whatever follows from there?"

I put my finger to my chin in what some would consider to be a pretentiously thoughtful pose. As I step slowly toward her, I can feel the burning lust for vengeance gleaming in my eyes.

There is a window behind her - open, with only fragile screening to guard alleged suicide victims from their doom.

I grab Eggy's glasses off and toss them with enough force for them to tear through the screen and fall to the streets below, hopefully to shatter into a million - no, a billion-odd pieces.

I then grab Eggy by the shoulders, pricking her delicate white Yoshi skin with my claws.

"I must exorcise you from my existence."

"WHAT?" Eggy was shrieking terrifyingly loud; I could not afford to allow her to carry like that. "What have I ever done to you?"

"While you personally irk me, the issue is far from personal," I tell her. "You KNOW what's going on. Now TELL ME - WHAT is the deal with the glasses?"

"The glasses... they... they are... I honestly don't know."

"LIAR!" I shout. I slam her into the sink, causing her skin to blotch purple from bruising.

"YOU KNOW WHAT THE DEAL IS WITH THE GLASSES! Now tell me. That is what I want. That or I shall claim that other thing that I want."

"...which is...?" Eggy oozes cowardice. Who would have ever known, from that confident and ambitious demeanor that she normally wears?

I whisper it to her.

"Your suffering. I want your suffering I want your beautiful suffering. I want to see your PAIN!"

My whisper explodes into a roar at the last part.

"All right, I'll tell you..."

Some how I doubt it.

"The swirly glasses... are a party favor..."

"LIAR!"

And now for the part that I had been looking forward to.

I pull out the souvenir scepter from my shell, the one I had purchased at the Hohensalzburg Palace's gift shop (unlike Dark Land gift shops, the souvenir shops here sell souvenirs of the highest quality). It was carved out of Mountain Pine, with a genuine sardonyx stud at the head.

Sardonyx is my traditional birthstone. Just what I needed for the spell.

March-born Eggy's traditional birthstone is the heliotrope, but I much prefer the name bloodstone. I purchased one of those as well, and, well aware of the mystical properties of both stones, I crushed the bloodstone to a powder with my white and black banded russet sardonyx.

To complete the spell I would have to mix our blood on the sardonyx stud of the scepter.

And then I would have to put her in the ground.

So she could never leave.

Eggy shoots her tongue out and it catches my hair.

I blow fire at her tongue - in my current state of mood, it's easier to exhale fire than to not exhale it - and it burns away to a string of boiling, bleeding tissue.

I hold my scepter under her tongue to catch the blood dripping from it.

For good measure, I sear her vocal chords, so that she cannot make any incriminating noise, and her face, causing her eyeballs to blister.

Finally, I blow a fireball through the screen window, and I hold poor helpless and maimed Eggy to it. I have only one question left to ask:

"Are you SUFFERING?"

Eggy drops her head in resignation.

Just to make sure that she is, I bite her arm and snap one of the bones between my teeth.

And when I drop her, I do not just let go - I THROW her.

I watch to make sure she does not pull one of thos Yoshi Flutter Jump stunts, and sure enough, she does.

Perfect.

I hold my scepter out to capture that energy. That ability, that trait that had been mystically granted to Yoshis at the dawn of their creation, just as fire breath had been granted to dragon Koopas. King Father himself had also stolen quite a few abilities from other dying creatures in this way.

Eggy flutters, and flutters, until she gets close enough for me to bash her skull in with my scepter.

Which is exactly what I do.

I feel the sweet, orgasmic power rushing through to me even more forcefully as I do so.

Eggy has, on the other hand, used the last of her flutters, and is now falling to her doom.

I watch as she is smeared beneath German-manufactured automobiles. Not a pretty sight.

But for me, in some sickening way it was.

Sweet victory, my genius proved once again. Based on my vast knowledge of the mystical arts, there was no chance that she would be revived as a Boo to haunt me, nor would she come back to life even if she had eaten a million 1-Ups.

Now that she has been exorcised from my existence, as planned, I can recover from this monstrous state of mind and focus on enjoying the fruits of my genius and efforts.

Frankenstein Prize, you are rightfully MINE, and I will allow NOBODY to commit such a crime against the universe as denying me the honor!

**Yes, fellow EA fans, I was listening to "Liar" for nearly the entire time I was writing this! XD**

**I thought it just fit, you know?**


	9. Replacements

I wash the blood and scorch marks off of my hair and body.

So I am to linger in Munich and celebrate the death of the evil Egglantine until my scheduled time of discharge from the psych ward. What to do, what to do...

I have no reason to fear being caught. The magic of the sardonyx scepter erases all traces of my DNA that might have wound up on her, I personally made sure of it. I will the scepter to erase all traces of my DNA from this bathroom. The police will find her and believe that she merely committed suicide.

And even if I WERE caught, well, not that I like to use my father as a threat, but they would have King Koopa to answer to.

I sneak into the mini-fridge in the top floor lobby where I stored the _Sachertorte_ I bought for my siblings to get it out. I will have to put it in a time deceleration chamber as soon as possible to prevent it from losing its freshness.

Nobody notices me. Nobody is aware in the least of the justified atrocity I had committed. I smirk inwardly at that.

So I sit in a coffeehouse and get high on caffeine for the rest of the night while thinking of the competition. Having killed off Eggy was a good move, for it means that her father will be too emotionally distressed to judge the nominees.

Speak of the devil...

"A young Yoshi girl fell off of the top floor building of Siemens Headquarters today. She was found dead on the streets this evening, and covered with burn marks. The autopsy reports the cause of death to be suicide."

SUCCESS!

I cannot help, especially under the effects of caffeine intoxication, but laugh out loud at this.

The others in the coffeehouse stare at me.

I will myself to suddenly scream and feign crying.

The others mumble things about me having too much caffeine and the like. Good.

I carefully polish the glistening banded onyx stone that studs my scepter. I have been wanting one of these for quite a while, and it was quite serendipitous that they had just the one I needed at the gift shop. As it grows in its stored power, it will be quite a helpful thing to have, and far superior to any scepter I have ever stolen from the kings of the lands my father had conquered... and lost to plumbers.

That will all change once I become King.

People are going to respect the Koopa Empire. They will prosper under my reign, which shall last a thousand years if not longer, and shall I fail to achieve immortality and die, the next in line shall be carefully chosen and groomed to carry on with the way an empire is supposed to be won. The worthy shall unfailingly receive what they are worthy of, and the unworthy shall pay the way Eggy had, if not worse.

And to further the respect of my future empire, to demolish the reputation I have as the spawn of an incompetent, to show them that they are not being ruled by a mere mortal, or even their average super-genius, I must be the youngest ever to win the Frankenstein Prize.

And I shall. I am most worthy of it after all, am I right?

But posers like that Eggy and her father and Fawful get in the way with their sneaky little plans and their googly specs, and must be ended...

I do wonder how Fawful is doing. Probably recovered from that little accident by now. Hopefully he is not wearing those glasses anymore.

So for competition, I have Iggy and his Synapse Switcher, which will probably blow up on him again...

Princess Lavender, and whatever project she made for her doctoral thesis I presume, which she wouldn't mind sharing with me, I am sure...

Gadd, who probably made some contraption dealing with ghosts of some sort...

And Fawful, and his... googly specs? No, he made something else...

But my invention... I really do need to work on a name for it... utilizes techniques I had developed and principles I had discovered on my own, trade secrets of mine, that none of them have ever heard of!

Unless they have done the same, keeping their techniques and discoveries secrets instead of putting them on the scientific journal for me to read (not that I would have been allowed to publish anything in a scientific journal anyway... although Eggy has, another thing about her that deeply irked me...)

As I think about it, it then dawns on me... I am not dealing with average people here. They are geniuses too. And I will have to fight HARD just to prove that I am the best among them.

Well, actually that shouldn't be too difficult. But I must fight hard to prove that I am the best by an ASTRONOMICAL margin. Again, that reputation of mine requires EXTRA hard work and extreme measures to change...

So I loiter at the coffeehouse until dawn rises, at which point I hire a taxi back up to the Alps.

Lavender is the first to greet me.

"Oh, Luddy, I've missed you so! Are you OK? Did they put you on any nightmare drugs? Was it terrible?"

"Yes." I tolerate Lavender's fondling and smooching as I search the lab for some parts to build a time deceleration chamber with for the _Sachertorte_.

"What's that? _Sachertorte_? May I have a piece?"

"It's not _Sachertorte_, it's plain old Black Forest cake," I lie. Don't want her to unwittingly give away that I had been in Austria for a substantial period of time and thus erase my alleged alibi of having been caged at a mental institute.

"Fawful just got back from the hospital too, and they're judging us tonight! Are you excited?"

I think about it for a moment.

"Indeed, I am." I then remember...

"If you don't mind me asking, what exactly are you doing for your project?"

I bite my tongue as a horrifying _deja vu_ flashback spasms through my conscious brain. The last time I asked this...

"Well, it's a surprise, you're going to have to wait until tonight to see!" she says, giggling. Is it just me, or does her giggling sound a tad... _maniacal_?

Lavender pecks me on the cheek and ruffles my hair. "Ta ta until tonight!"

She skips off in a flurry of further giggling.

At last. My moment, and I mean a moment that actually MEANS something, has arrived. I arrange my poster and machine up at a table in an auditorium much like the one at Mushroom Kingdom Academy, except larger and older and classier, adorned with long narrow Gothic windows and a chandelier and gargoyle-esque carvings on the walls - on second thought, not much like the one at the Academy at all.

All of the giddy anticipation I have ever felt at all of the Academy's science fairs, magnified with a 100x lens, is right now rocking through my body, my heart, my mind, my soul.

Also magnified is a tiny little fear, a feeling that something would go wrong - would they find out what I had done?

No, that is logically absurd. But that's not all that could happen...

Eggy might be gone, but her equally evil comrades are still lurking. Somewhere. Doing something. I am going to find out sooner or later, but for the moment I am vulnerable with not-knowing.

It then dawns on me that, of the five nominees, I am the only one that does not wear glasses.

Chancellor Hildegard Keiner steps into the room with an air of overaffected poise.

"Attention Frankenstein Prize nominees." Her voice is cracking with tight-throatedness. "As you all know, the Frankenstein Prize winner is determined by a committee of three judges."

_Mein Gott_, I see where this is going...

Hildegard wipes her face with a handkerchief. "But, unfortunately, one of this year's judges suffered a tragic loss of a member of the family, and will be unable to judge tonight..." Hildegard blows her nose and sniffs.

I hope this does not mean that the judging will be delayed again... then again, maybe that would be a good thing? More time to figure out what exactly is going on...

"Fortunately, we were able to find another judge on time. I, of course am one of the judges."

This is the moment when the nominees are expected to applaud. So we applaud, while Hildegard curtsies and continues.

"The second judge is the esteemed Doctor Crygor."

Doctor Crygor! Sounds familiar...

Lavender claps the most enthusiastically. "I am best friends with his granddaughter Penny!" she tells me.

Well, that explains it...

"The third judge, the one who was appointed due to Doctor Benedictis's tragedy, is Doctor Wolfgang Amadeus von Bachstein."

Lavender applauds enthusiastically for this one as well. But I, instead of applauding, do a facepalm.

My _Großonkel_ as judge. Now I will be accused of having won based on favoritism!

"Because it has come to our attention that the third judge is related to one of our nominees, this year's Prize will be awarded blindly, that is, none of the judges shall know which feat of scientific marvel belongs to which contestant."

Good idea. I sigh in relief. Perhaps I am paranoid, but I just KNOW that this is not where tonight's troubles end though...

"Hey, how is my little Boltzmann?" _Onkel_ says in his thick Viennese dialect, messing up my hair that I had groomed for the occasion.

"Well... between you and me... I just got back from my first trip to..."

"I know. But we're going to keep that between you and me, right? Don't want to worry your _Mutter_."

Most certainly not.

"So, which invention is yours?"

"_Onkel_! This is supposed to be a BLIND judging! Besides, you will know which one is mine. It will be the -"

"Very best entry by a long shot," he says in unison with me. "That's my Ludwig. Say, is this your brother?"

Iggy had snuck up on _Onkel._

"Hi, I am Iggy! Are you Ludwig's Nazi grandfather?"

"_Was_?" _Onkel _asks me. He does not understand much English at all.

"I'd... rather not translate that..."

"Nah, it's all right, I did hear the Nazi part, but I won't be offended."

I translate, and _Onkel_ laughs.

"_Na, i bin ned saanea Nazi-Großvater. I bin saa Nazi Großonkel!"__** (This is supposed to be Viennese German, so Google Translate doesn't work for it, it says, "No, I am not his Nazi grandfather, I am his Nazi great uncle!" If I made a mistake, please let me know.)**_

Luckily for Iggy, _Onkel_ has a great sense of humor. He laughs at Iggy's confusion and pats him on the head.

"Haha, I like this one! And he's actually almost smart as you?"

"ALMOST… and until I did an experiment on him he was quite the opposite."

_Onkel_ convulses with laughter.

I watch Lavender chatting with Crygor, who grumpily ignores her. Lavender turns around and enthusiastically runs up to meet with me and _Onkel_.

"Gosh, Doctor Crygor is not the most friendly of scientists, is he?"

"Yeah, perhaps it's from specializing in cryogenic technology, but he does seem rather cold, wouldn't you say, _Onkel_?"

"Aw, he's just mad because he's never won a Frankenstein Prize before!"

"I know, his own granddaughter has beaten him at the Invent-Off that is hosted by her school," says Lavender, who had studied German to full proficiency out of obsessive infatuation for me.

_Onkel_ laughs even harder after hearing this.

"Is your great uncle OK?" Lavender whispers to me.

"He's fine. It is quite normal for him to laugh like he's having a seizure. Now you only have to worry if he gets his hands on your food or drink, for he will not restrain himself from spiking it with dangerous experimental formulas…"

Princess Lavender snickered at that. "He seems interesting. I would like to visit your family in Vienna one day."

Her visiting my family… wouldn't that be awkward.

"Uhh…" Well, Lavender is the kind of girl that one would not have a problem with bringing home to meet the parents…

"Hey, Ludwig, you want to know a secret?"

"Please." Although the adrenaline secreted out of anxiety over what this secret might be is shocking to my heart.

"Now I was nominated for the cancer-fighting nanobots that I invented. They were created for my doctoral dissertation. They can tell the cancer cells apart from normal cells based on sight – they generate light rays that shine through the cells for them to see, and they are intelligent enough to tell by sight whether the cell is cancerous or not – well, they aren't, but the machine that relays signals back and forth to them and supplies them with energy through a quantum entanglement based teleportation process is!"

"That's… very impressive, Princess." Indeed, it is.

"I guess, but I had created something even MORE impressive, during the time that you were in the psych ward, and they gave me permission to use that invention instead! Wanna see?"

"First, tell me what it is…"

Lavender turns around for a second. Then she turns back.

Princess Lavender wears wide round glasses with pink frames. First thing I notice is that the pink frames are gone.

Second thing I notice is that her eyes – wide and sparkling blue, with a hint of indigo – are hidden behind the sudden glare of the glasses.

Third thing I notice – my own eyes are being suctioned out of their sockets… just like last time.

Fourth thing I notice… my consciousness fading away…


	10. Meanwhile

**(This chapter is the exception, NOT in Luddy's POV =/)**

"Fuck, Ludwig and Iggy have been gone for an awfully long time!" shouted Morton while watching MTV with his siblings. "I thought they were going to be back by now! That's what they said, just a COUPLE of days! The award was, like, three nights ago?"

"Eh, maybe Kooky likes it so much better in Europe he decided to stay," said Roy. "Or maybe Iggy is cooped up in some kind of sick mental hospital with some kook doing experiments on him!"

"I don't know why WE couldn't have gone!" Wendy whined. "I mean, I wouldn't like wearing a dirndl or eating icky German food but I would have liked to see those fairy tale castles he told me about!"

Larry was quietly huffing pot in a corner. Lemmy balanced on a ball, his eyes rolling around in his vacant-looking face. "You know, it's funny... I used to, uh, have some kind of connection with Iggy... I, like, always knew what he was thinking... but then he got smart, and I never know what he's thinking anymore..."

"ONE OF YOU KIDS FETCH THE MAIL!"

"It's your turn," said Roy to Larry.

"Larry thinks it's your turn," Lemmy said.

"I thought it was Morton's turn," said Wendy.

"Well I thought it was your turn!" shouted Morton.

"Just get the damn mail," Roy said to Morton. "That way the rest of us can at least have a moment's peace and quiet.

Morton swore under his breath as he headed to the front to fetch the mail. He returned with a great big package.

"Ludwig's sent us presents!" Morton exclaimed.

The Koopalings gathered around the package to rip it open with their claws. The first thing they found in the package was a note, in Ludwig's dignified handwriting, which Morton read out loud:

"_Greetings Dear Family:_

_Bavaria is beautiful, as always. I am thrilled to revisit my alma mater and meet with renowned scientists, and I do believe that I am going to win this year._

_However, due to some unfortunate events of the sort that most often plague those gifted with genius, I am afraid that the awarding of the Frankenstein Prize has been postponed, and so I will have to stay here in Bavaria for a few extra days_ - hehe, PSYCH WARD!

"_So due to this turn of events I have decided, instead of waiting until my return to present you with the gifts, to mail them to you. Knowing that you fellows are not the most appreciative of culture, I tried my best to find gifts that are unique to this area of the world that would still suit your respective interests. "_

Roy pulled an enormous pair of lederhosen out of the box. "What the hell..."

"For _King Father, a pair of lederhosen,"_ Morton read. "_Fun to wear for Oktoberfest. I highly suggest coming to Oktoberfest in Munich sometime; you will love the Bavarian food and beer. If they do not fit, let me know and I will tailor them to fit you_.

Roy, Morton and Larry all snickered at the thought of King Dad wearing lederhosen.

"_For Roy, a bottle of Bärwurzschnaps _(Needless to say Morton mispronounced all of the German words). I _do not drink much alcohol, but I do know that German beer is some of the best in the real world, and certainly better than what they usually make or import to here. Keep in mind, though, it is stronger than the beer that you're used to. Also, do not show it to King Father, or he will force you to trade his lederhosen for it."_

"Wow, thank you, Kooky, you are da BOMB!" Roy immediately opened it and took a drink. "And so is this Bearwurst... bear snaps... whatever ya call it."

"_For Wendy, a snowglobe with a model of Schloss Neueschwanstein, or New Swan Stone Castle inside. I know that you don't care about history, but castles such as this were commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria (not to be confused with the future King Ludwig I of Dark Land) and they were the inspiration for the castles shown in Disney movies and fairy tale picture books. He was also known as Mad King Ludwig, for he was believed to be deranged (like yours truly) and also as Der Märchenkönig, or the "Fairy Tale King". I apologize if you would have preferred the sugar castle, but I imagine if I gave you that, Lemmy would rip into it sooner or later and sneakily demolish it piece by piece_."

Wendy's eyes lit up. "Wow, Ludwig got me something that doesn't suck, that even matches my room!"

"_For Morton_ - hey, that's me! - _I decided to get you some music_ - what the fuck? Probably classical shit! - _Knowing that you are not into classical period music, so I decided to search for some modern music that might be to your liking and I came across a German band called ASP. Their music is darker than what you are used to, but I believe that it might suit your tastes; it is not quite to my tastes but the artists nevertheless demonstrate more skill, talent and originality than those clowns that you listen to_ - FUCK HOW DARE HE CALLS KISS CLOWNS! Somebody get me a boom box so I can listen to these Nazis that he likes so much and make fun of them!"

Roy got out his boom box and Morton popped the CD in. "Hmm, not bad. Even though I can't understand the words, but then I listen to a lot of Norwegian black metal bands so that doesn't bother me!"

"For Larry, a can of Red Bull Cola. Red Bull was actually invented in Austria, and they just came out with this cola drink, which we probably do not have yet in Dark Land. I think you will like it, because it is made with coca leaf and thus should contain traces of cocaine - not enough to make you high though."

"Sweet," said Larry, opening the can and drinking it right away. He was instantly put out of his dopey marijuana mood and became somewhat hyper.

"_For Lemmy, a box of Mozartwürzeln. They are just like the Mozartkugeln that you and Iggy like so much to get into while I am not looking, except they are cube-shaped; I bought the cubes because they are more space-efficient than the balls. I happened to have the opportunity to venture across the border to visit Salzburg in Austria, which is the only place in the world where you can find these, and I threw in a couple of samples of other chocolates that cannot be found outside of Europe as well. Now that you have your own stash, I expect you to stop stealing from mine. REMEMBER TO SHARE WITH YOUR SIBLINGS!_

_P.S. That is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on the wrapper, NOT GEORGE WASHINGTON!_

_(Though I suppose I ought to give you credit for actually knowing that such a person as George Washington exists)."_

"YAY!" Lemmy immediately opened the wrapper of a _Mozartwürzel,_ swallowed it whole.

"Hey, that's not fair! Why does he get all this candy and all I get is a CD?" Morton complained. "Well, he did tell Lemmy to share!"

Morton stuffed a bunch of bite-size Milka Naps into his shell and a few _Würzeln_ into his mouth.

"Say, these are pretty damn awesome!" Morton said with two and a half of the marzipan and mocha-filled chocolates in his mouth.

"Move over, the candy with the girl on it is mine!" shouted Wendy as she snatched an Empress Sissi Kugel out of the box.

Roy and Larry each took a candy as well, but Lemmy started crying about his siblings taking too much. He was about to open a box with a Kinder Egg inside when Morton read out the part for the last addressee of the paper.

"_For Bowser Junior, a Kinder Egg. It is delicious egg sculpted to be made of milk chocolate on the outer layer and white chocolate on the inner layer, and it contains a toy inside, which is why it has been banned in many parts of the world, out of fear of choking children, which is absurd, for the toy is encased inside a plastic capsule, which even Morton's mouth is not big enough to swallow."_

"How about I just eat the chocolate and tell BJ that Ludwig only got him a toy!" Lemmy said, a sneaky look on his face. He ripped open the box and started on the chocolate. He stuffed the entire egg into his mouth, and gagged when the capsule got caught in his throat.

"Well no wonder it got banned!" shouted Morton. "But then most kids aren't stupid enough to put the entire thing in their fucking mouth!"

Larry jumped up and stomped Lemmy on his back shell, causing the capsule to blow out and split open, revealing the Smurf inside.

"Thanks, Larry. I could tell you were going to do that. You know, I wonder who knows what Iggy is thinking now that I don't know anymore..."

Morton read the last part of the paper. "_As I am packaging these gifts at a Munich post office, I am preparing to do something that I should not feel very proud of doing, though King Father would probably be very proud of me indeed, but I feel that, either to quell my baser animal instincts or to do a great service to the kinfolk of my homecountry and its neighbors, that it is something that has to be done - and I am afraid that I will enjoy doing it. I would ask you all to wish me luck but by the time you receive this the dark deed will already have been committed. Though according to a theory that was disputed by a Nobel laureate from my own Austria, as far as you are concerned I am in a state of having done it and not having done it at the same time, as well as a state of being dead and alive at the same time, and pretty much a state of everything else that I might possibly be under some minute chance at the same time, until you see me and affirm that I am indeed one thing and not the other, in which case wish for the best probable outcome to play out. You probably did not understand any of that, but either way I love you all and would never enjoy doing any such things to any of you - at least I hope I would not. Also prepare for a Sachertorte, one of Austria's most famous desserts, when I return_ - is that some kind of cake? I hope it's some kind of cake!

_Your brilliant and misunderstood eldest brother/son,_

_Prince Ludwig Beethoven von Koopa_. - holy shit, I didn't know he had a middle name!"

"Well, that was unusually sweet of him," said Wendy. "Now I'd better give Junior his present - or what's left of it."

"Yeah, and you can also give Pops HIS present!" Roy tossed the big baggy lederhosen at her.

**OK, now pay attention: according to the theory described above, there is an alternate probability (a very small one, or maybe NOT so small...) that was also happening at the same time as this scenario, at least until the Koopalings found that the present box arrived, during which Ludwig mails the present box while he is still in Salzburg. Some of the presents came out different, and Ludwig forgets to write the 'von' in his name.**

**But there is a REASON he 'forgets' to write the 'von' in his name. If you review with a correct answer to this question you will get a Koopaccino for your profile.**

**Also, something else does not make sense here. If you have not caught it, you might want to read my fanfic "My Koopalings"; if you still don't get it, then look up product descriptions for all of the products in this story on Wikipedia. This point is CRUCIAL.**

**If you get it, please review and tell what you think is wrong with this story, and if your answer is good enough you shall receive a Koopakugel for your profile as a reward; if you still don't get it, never fear; you will find out in due time.**


	11. Announcement

**Nobody has earned a Koopaccino or a Koopakugel! I am disappointed! :/**

Consciousness slowly slips back into my brain, amidst disordered, medicated dream-thoughts. I stare at the nurse's office surroundings and the purple-clad princess at the foot of my bed for a good while before my brainwaves reorganize and I remember the last thing that happened...

"Hi, Luddy. Feeling better? I bought you some-"

"_GEH WEG_!" I hide inside my shell. Lavender's hand bravely caresses one of the spikes on my shell even as fire spouts out of it.

"What are you scared of?"

"You know what happened!" my voice reverberates through my carapace.

"You fainted yesterday. I don't know why, I was showing you my nanobots and you-"

"IT WAS NOT THE NANOBOTS YOU WERE SHOWING ME!" Micro-droplets of anguished tears spray out of my shell.

"Ludwig? Are you okay? The nurses do not know why you fainted, but don't worry, the prize won't be awarded until you are fully well."

"I am fully well, I just need you to stay away from me. You are making me uncomfortable."

"Ok, then, I guess you don't want these Milka bars or this Kinder Egg, and I'm going to have to drink this twenty-ounce _Doppelmokka."_

I perk up at the mention of _Mokka_. "_Gib mir das!"_

I then hesitate. Have I not learned my lesson about drinking coffee that I have not personally overseen the making of, particularly from those that have a history from terrorizing me?

"Would you... please have a sip?"

"Well, I've already had a sip, and it's good. But to assure you that it's not drugged or anything, I will take another one."

Lavender brought the drink to her lips, sipped a good amount, and wiped her face, leaving a faint coffee stain on her glove. "Delicious. Now drink it before it gets cold."

And so I do. It is drip brew, the most popular form of coffee served in Germany (no surprise, for it was a lady from this country who invented the coffee filter), rather than espresso, which is preferred by most of Austria, myself included. Still, it was not bad, especially with Milka chocolate powder in it.

I look at the candy she got me - Milka _Kuhflecken_ (Cow Spots, milk chocolate flecked with white chocolate), and one with a yogurt filling, and one with a milk cream filling. I snicker as I pick up the Kinder Egg.

"I actually have quite a large collection of these toys at my Mutter's place. I sent one of these as a present for Bowser Junior. With any luck he will choke on it."

Lavender chuckled. She brings her hands to my face, and she suddenly looks less blurry.

"The nurses found that you need glasses."

"WHAT? That is impossible... I have twenty-twenty vision!"

I take the glasses off and throw them at her. Not that I would have minded wearing glasses so much, but after seeing what happened to Fawful, I can never be too careful...

"Please, Ludwig, just wear them when you need to see things up close."

"Why can't I have contacts instead? Or laser surgery?"

"Contacts carry the risk of conjunctivitis, and this university does not want to risk being held liable for blinding you with laser surgery."

"All the geniuses here and not ONE of them can invent a cure for blindness?"

"Please, Ludwig, these glasses are your only option at the moment. Just wear them for right now. You MUST. Trust me."

Lavender stares at me with her large, sparkly deep-blue, almost violet eyes, seen clearly through her glasses that are, thankfully, her original large pink-rimmed ones.

"Fine. I will wear them. But tell me, do they have to be so large and round and..." No swirls, but the shiny glare over the overly thick lenses is disconcerting.

"They were made especially for you. Now enjoy your chocolate and get ready for the judging. I will tell the nurses that you are well enough."

I pull away as Lavender grabs my face and attempts to kiss me on the lips, so she settles for kissing me on the cheek.

She leaves, and I turn to look at myself in the mirror. The glasses are shiny, TOO shiny. I smudge them with my fingers to reduce the glare.

...

Finally. Tonight, the award will be awarded.

To me.

I am, after all, a shoo-in, aren't I?

But I don't want to merely win. I want to shame the other contestants, make them look bad, HUMILIATE them with a cascade of my intellect.

I take apart and reassemble the machine, making sure every miniscule piece is in pristine working order, and I look over the report and blueprints that I have aesthetically arranged on my posterboard. So many microscopic errors... how could I have missed such things?

I also erase and remove all traces of my name or anything else that would give away that the project is mine, for if I failed to, then I would be disqualified.

Now Iggy's invention might rival mine, but he is sloppy, and therefore unlikely to impress the judges. Gadd had come up with such wonders as a time machine, but nothing that I, especially considering his (ever so slightly though) encroaching senility, would be unable to top. Princess Lavender's nanobots do indeed sound impressive, but I believe that I make far more impressive use of the still largely unharnessed "spooky action" principle.

Overall, I would say that my technology is at least a DECADE ahead of anything my competition could accomplish.

But as for Fawful, I am really not sure...

Fawful flips out when Iggy approaches him to study his project. He waves a laser gun in Iggy's face, causing him to run screaming and hide inside his shell. Now I need no warning not to approach Fawful for the laser gun is the least of what I fear about him...

And then comes the time for the contestants to exit the auditorium and allow the judges to blindly judge their projects. My face beads with wetness, fear shoots out of my kidneys and paralyzes me from the spine up, and my heart feels large and fragile in my chest as I wait, suffering through time dilated by anxiety. I lick my Kinder Egg until I have a chocolate mask over the lower part of my face.

My Onkel is the first judge to burst through the door, finished with his judging. "That IQ-enhancing machine gets my vote! That one was your project, am I right? No, I know I am right, only my _kleiner_ Boltzmann could make that!"

Giggling and twitching, he pats me heartily on the shoulder, as my adrenal glands fire another jolt that freezes me solid. That machine that he mentioned is indeed mine, but it is not the machine that I had entered...

We are called back into the auditorium; Lavender drags me along the floor, for my limbs have gone so limp that I cannot stand.

Hildegard Keiner, much to the pain of my palpitating heart, SLOWLY steps up to her place on the stage and clears her throat (also slowly, though that might be due to time dilation caused by my sped-up body functions as well).

"Thank you all for your magnificent contributions to society. Frankenstein University has a long history, over one hundred years' worth of history to be exact, of encouraging outstanding scientific endeavor, and every year we are pleased to find individuals such as you that have pushed the envelope beyond what most of the world would never have thought it was possible to push beyond. You should all be proud, for the Frankenstein Prize is the most coveted scientific award in the metauniversal community **(that means those that either don't live in the real world or do but know about the existence of the "Mushroom World")**. We have looked carefully over all of the marvels that we have been presented with, and I must say, it was a very tough decision between the five of them.

Tough decision, sure... that is said just to spare the others their self-esteem. If there was a tough decision, it would have been between my project, and... _my_ project...

Hildegard talks and talks, pontificating on everything that was great about the projects, hinting at what was wrong with each of them in a very euphemistic way that might easily be mistaken for compliments...

"And without further ado, I shall announce the winner of the highly esteemed Frankenstein Prize. This year's most outstanding nominee, and the winner of this year's Frankenstein Prize, is..."

Hildegard ceremoniously opens the envelope - I do wonder who seals these envelopes? She fumbles with the paper as my hear beats faster and almost painfully, further dilating time...

Time seems to have stopped altogether... EVEN GOING BACKWARDS! Is that even possible for mere adrenaline to accomplish?

Hildegard finally has the paper smoothed out and ready to be read. She takes a deep breath, straightens her glasses (which catch a glare that courses a chill through my hot heart) and clears her throat again. Somebody needs to be introduced to a good expectorant.

"Anyway, without... without further ado, the winner is..."

Time is DEAD FROZEN. FOREVER. Or so it feels, even after the sound vibrations carrying the name of the winner have hit my eardrums and the signal is transferred by the auditory nerve and processed in my brain.

"Lord Fawful."

**...**

**I don't know about you, but if I were nominated for that award with Ludwig as my competition, I would be afraid to win it! **


	12. Frozen

He will pay.

He will SUFFER for this!

Ludwig von Koopa loses to nobody, and I mean NOBODY - ESPECIALLY not a cheater such as this animate legume who is now on stage giving a drawn-out and egotistical acceptance speech.

I want to scream with rage. I want to shout out that he is a CHEATER, that he stole MY invention…

But I restrain myself. I stand quietly and applaud along with the others.

_Onkel,_ however, is throwing a hissy fit, shrieking things in gibberish out of outrage that his great-nephew did not win, but surprisingly, Iggy is not.

Iggy calmly applauds Fawful. Strange, and COMPLETELY unlike him...

No matter. I should consider myself fortunate that he isn't making such a scene. Also luckily_, Onkel's_ speech is too disorganized for anybody to take heed of what he is trying to say, nor is he violent enough to warrant a trip to the psych ward.

Fawful FINALLY gets to the point in his speech where he asks the audience if they have any questions. I raise my hand.

"Bravo! I must say, your _Geniefikator_ is quite a marvel! Would you mind demonstrating it for all of us? I am simply on the edge of my seat waiting to see it in action!"

"Well, on anybody else I will not be sharing, for the geniusing is to be all mine!"

"Understood. In which case, you should use it on yourself!"

"Are you saying that I am filled with the dumbness that is in need of geniusifying?"

"Oh, no, I am merely saying that it never hurts to be a little smarter."

"But I cannot be any smarter! INFINITE SMARTS is what I am having!"

"Oh, I understand. You are not smart enough to make your own self infinitely smarter."

"Most certainly am I! Now prepare audience, for I am about to smartify myself until I am making your brains look like the jelly that melts on your morning toast!"

Fawful cranks the machine to the very highest setting and places the helmet on his head. The electricity crashes through it, in an overly theatrical way that causes the electronic lights in the building to flicker (I did not know the old iron chandeliers were fixed to be electric) and the entire audience to gasp and cower in fear that sparks might rain on them.

The machine shorts out, and I watch with bated breath, having never Geniusified a genius before, and eager to test my theory on the results of such use.

Fawful rises up from the smoking machine, laughing.

"I AM SO GENIUSYYYYYY WA-HA-HA-HO-HO-HO-HA-HEE-HEE-HEE-WOO-HOO-HO-HEEEEE!"

Fawful jabbers incoherently, like a religious zealot speaking in tongues, while spinning around until he falls off stage. He pushes himself up and holds out his laser gun.

"SHOT SHOT BUZZ BUZZ ZAP! HA HA HA HA HA!"

He fires it lazily, but the fellow contestants and judges shriek as they barely dodge the laser blasts.

Doctor Crygor fires an ice ray at the vegetable, causing him to freeze into something that one might find in the flash-frozen produce section of a supermarket.

Hildegard calls the police to take the bean to the psychiatric hospital.

"Now, in light of this recent incident that you all have witnessed, I am afraid that we shall have to delay the celebration banquet until Fawful is well and out of the psychiatric hospital."

"_Frau_ Keiner, I object," I blurt out. "Lord Fawful's invention has proved to be most unworthy of an award. Not only did he use it irresponsibly, but the machine shorted out while he was using it."

"While it is true that he made an error of judgment in using it on such a high setting on himself, we have looked over the blueprints and everything and it has proven to be most worthy of the top prize. Jealousy is an ugly thing, _Herr_ von Koopa."

True that. But I am at least not too vain not to show it.

"I CONFESSSSS!" My Onkel came running onto the stage, crashing into Hildegard and nearly knocking her off stage.

"I helped Fawful with his invention! I HELPED HIM! That's why he didn't know how to use it! He even bribed me to pick him, and I accepted! I BROKE THE HONOR CODE!"

"Is that true then?" Hildegard pushed herself up and straightened her glasses. "In which case, Lord Fawful is disqualified as a contestant and prize winner, and you, Doctor Wolfgang von Bachstein, are fired as a judge. We shall select a new judge by tomorrow and redo the judging for the remaining four contestants tomorrow morning."

_Onkel _winks at me. I whisper a "_Danke_" as he walks with his head hung in feigned shame out of the auditorium.

Splendid. I now have a second chance to win. I just wondered whom_ Onkel's _replacement was going to be. Hopefully somebody who was not related to one of us and thus under no obligation to judge blindly...

Iggy laughs maniacally at Fawful's misfortune. He turns around, sees me and crashes into me.

"THANK YOU FOR TRICKING THAT STUPID BEAN HEAD! HA HA HA NOW I'M GONNA WIN! THEN WE CAN GO GET SOME BARBARIAN CREAM DOUGHNUTS!"

Iggy kisses me on the cheek - a slow, wet, sloppy kiss that I have a hard time fighting away from. His skinny arms, though somewhat frail-looking, have me locked in a vicelike hug.

When he finally lets go, he hunches over, wringing his claws, laughing softly.

"Hee hee hee... barbarian cream... Barbaria home of the barbarians.._Barbar Bayerische Creme... Die _Nazi Gaylords _sind tot!"_

Random, very random... also, _since when can Iggy speak German_?

And with perfect accent too.

Perhaps there was some hidden meaning behind Iggy saying this… that the Nazi gaylords are dead…

Or maybe just more nonsense, I never know what Iggy is up to anymore…

I have the sudden urge to take a peek inside his mind with the use of my invention…

Iggy grabs my hair and pulls me around in a circle. "_Lassen Sie uns Schach spielen_!"

He wants to play chess?

"Ok, Iggy, we shall. But you have to make a wager with me. If you win, then I get you a barbarian cream doughnut. But if I win, then I get to view what's going on in your mind with my invention. Deal?"

Iggy froze with pondering for a second.

"_Ja, ja_!" He jerked his up and down with blinding, spastic speed. "Barbar Crème und… ihre Brille."

"My… my glasses?" I am somewhat nervous about fulfilling his specific request…

"_Ja."_

"OK, then, you get the doughnut and… my glasses…"

Now we need to find a board and some pieces…

Iggy pulls a box out of his shell and tosses it to the floor, and it opens, spilling the pieces everywhere. Grunting, I gather them up while Iggy probes his nasal cavity with a bishop.

The few times that I was able to get Iggy to concentrate on a chess game since he became a genius, I had defeated him, usually fairly quickly. Not because he was a poor player – he was in fact incredibly good for having had little prior practice – but because his mind, as indirect, spastic, random, hyper and convoluted as it was, was like an open book to me.

This time around, however, his every movement hints at one sort of plan he might have had in mind, but every time I moved, his plan changes.

The game takes long, far longer than usual. I do a fair job at guarding myself, but I ultimately fail to do any significant damage to his defenses.

I eventually get to the point where my queen is stuck. The best I can do is take out an insignificant pawn before he takes it with another pawn.

Iggy laughs rabidly at the vein throbbing in frustration over my skull. NEVER had I had such a worthy opponent!

I run through all of my possible movements in my head, predicting the moves that he would make 5, 6, 7, 8 turns ahead of time… From the tight, snickering grin on his face, he is probably looking 10, 11, 12 turns on top of the turns I was calculating.

Dizzying, even for a mind like mine… he had no clear playing style to follow, to help me to narrow down the thousands of possibilities I was juggling and losing track of in my head… perhaps it's a good thing for me to have such a mental challenge as this…

"LUDDY!"

Princess Lavender runs up and hugs me from behind.

"Aww, playing a game with your brother, how cute. Luddy's really good, you know! I never win unless he loses on purpose!"

"Neither does he," I growl.

"Anyway, they announced who the replacement judge is. It's going to be Egglantine's father, he'll be back from his daughter's funeral tomorrow!"

_Egglantine's… father_… I flush even more hotly, and the resultant entropic disorder fries all of the calculated movements out of my brain.

Nothing to worry about… he doesn't know… biased maybe… but there are two other judges, no… reason… to… panic…

"Where.. was I…" Feeling faint in the head, I dizzily make the movement that on first glance seems wisest.

My ears are barraged by a sonic boom of giggling. Iggy moves his queen through the space that had been blocked by the pawn I had taken with my queen the last turn.

_"SCHACHMATT!"_

Iggy reaches for my face with eager, twitching claws.


	13. The Deal

I grab Iggy's claws just in time and slam them down to the chessboard. He squirms and squeals pathetically, his eyes wide and delirious-looking, and fixated on mine, behind their glasses.

"YOU... MADE A... DEAL! DEAL BREAKER!"

"Listen, I'll get you the doughnut now, but you can have the glasses tomorrow. I promise."

"Tomorrow during the judging. I want them by then."

I wonder what sort of sneaky motive he has for this. The reason I am so reluctant to give up my glasses is not because I need them to correct my googly-screwed vision, but because... when Princess Lavender gave me the glasses, I could... I cannot explain it, but I KNEW that she had no wicked motive for making me wear them.

"OK, you can have them tomorrow during the judging. Deal."

I let Iggy go and shake his hand - he shakes it rather vigorously, already salivating for that "barbarian" cream doughnut.

"Now pardon me for a moment, I have to use the restroom."

I head, instead of to the restroom, to the nurse's office. I use my lock-opener to open the pill cabinet.

I have not been monitoring Iggy's medication since we arrived in Bavaria, having entrusted him with the responsibility out of laziness, knowing that he would forget to take the pills, or simply refuse to take them, or overdose on them. To be honest, I could not tell whether or not he HAD been taking the medication, although normally I am able to tell by his behavior and appearance what medications he had taken, and in what doses. Perhaps he is on some drug that he is keeping secret from me... oh, so much that I want to know! Must get him into my my mind viewing invention...

And that would be easiest to do if I could find a good medicine to slip into his cream doughnut. Something that would knock him out, zombify him... like that Zarcolex they gave me at the psych ward...

What luck! There happens to be a pill container with one - just ONE - Zarcolex tablet inside.

I delicately handle the chalky yellow tablet, placing it in a pocket inside my wallet where it would not begin to dissolve from heat or moisture. I am not sure if this will be enough to do it, but none of the other medications are soft enough to blend inconspicuously with the cream of the doughnut. Iggy is oblivious to the fact that the family is always slipping drugs into his food, nor does he seem to care when he sees that they do, but he is rather particular about strange chunks in his food.

"All right, Iggy, now let's get that barbarian cream doughnut!"

I escort Iggy to the food court, which is thankfully open tonight.

_"Ich möchte einen großen Mokka mit zwei Schüssen aus Espresso und einem Schuss Himbeer-Sirup, bitte."_

"AHEM!" Iggy shrieks, impatient for his misnomer of a pastry.

_"Er will ein Barbar Creme Donut."_

The person manning the coffee stand seems confused, and I then realize my blunder. Barbarian cream is in actuality no less appropriate a name than Bavarian cream, for Bavarian cream doughnuts are not actually filled with Bavarian cream, nor is Bavarian cream in actuality a Bavarian delicacy.

_"Es tut mir leid. Er will einen Pudding gefüllte Donut."_

"NAZI CREAM! NAZI CREAM!" Iggy shouts.

I shove Iggy's head into his shell.

The person hands me the doughnut, which is just a doughnut filled with vanilla pudding, but it will shortly become an appropriately-named barbarian cream doughnut, for it takes a barbarian to dope his brother's food with strong sedative medication. I take Iggy to a corner, sit on his shell with my feet blocking his face from popping out, and shove the Zarcolex into the hole where the cream had been inserted.

"That will teach you to make inappropriate derogatory remarks at the person who prepares for you your much-wanted barbarian cream doughnut!"

I shove the doughnut into his shell. He pops out and chomps a big bite out of the doughnut, resulting in cream gushing into his nose and powdered sugar falling off of his face.

"Is it good?"

Iggy nods. "Nazis make good doughnuts!"

If not for the fact that Iggy would shortly be in a state of drowsy semi-paralyzation... there is a certain CONFIRMED Nazi that I would gladly have set him loose on.

Yes, the entire judging affair is nagging at my mind. There have been several awards in the past that I felt were undeserved, the nominees even selected by way of politics or cronyism.

Iggy babbles and sings off-key as usual. I fear that the single Zarcolex might not be strong enough to knock him out; the psychiatrist did, after all, say it was the weakest sedative they have. He was probably lying, as they typically do to perceived lunatics; if that was their mildest antipsychotic then I fear very much to experience the effects of their strongest.

Iggy suddenly staggers, having tripped over... his own feet, I guess. I catch him before he falls face-first to the stony castle floor.

"Iggy, are you all right?"

"YAAAAAAHHHHH..." Iggy's tongue hangs out of his mouth, saliva oozing over his lips.

I help him up and hold onto his shoulders as I escort him back to the auditorium. He suddenly stretches out of my grip and purposely bangs his head onto the wall.

"STOP IT! IGGY, DO YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO THE HOSPITAL?"

"NAAAAA! NO MORE VACATION!" he shrieks.

"It's ok, you're not going on vacation, I won't let them take you. You just need to take a good, long nap for tomorrow when they will judge your invention."

Iggy thrusts his body into mine, nearly causing me to fall over, and hugs me while making a strange gargling purring sound."

"Quit... drooling over... my hair..."

I pull him away, painfully, for Iggy had been sucking on my hair. I see that he has blue strands caught in his teeth.

"That is it... you are going to bed, mister!"

I drag him over the floor to the auditorium and rest him into the seat of my mind viewer. I shake with feverish anticipation, hoping that Iggy is too doped out to notice.

"Hehe - now just sit there, and relax..."

"I thought we were... going to bed..."

"You are in bed."

"Ohhh... I'm dreaming then..."

"Yes."

I place the helmet over his head and turn on the machine. Not sure if I want to taste, smell or feel the substance of his thoughts, I merely put the headphones on and turn my eyes to the screen.

Iggy's thoughts sound scrambled... distorted... like the sound of a radio in an area with poor reception... they look like television snow...

Then the sound stops, and the screen blacks out. The screen flickers a bit, and I hear an eerie high-pitched ringing resonating through his skull...

I will have to probe his memories... he is not actively thinking of much, being halfway asleep...

As I turn the settings on to probe the guarded sections of his brain, I hear a very deep noise, almost like laughing, but at a pitch so deep as to be nearly inaudible...

The screen begins to glow... in slowly flickering colors... which begin to wobble and blend into each other...

I begin to fear the worst... I begin to sweat and palpitate, knowing that Iggy would be just the type to have the kind of thoughts that would...

_BAAAAAM-ZZZZ-ZZZZ! Sssssshhhhh..._

My heart recoils with a painful thump as a shock wave jolts down from my eardrums. I blink as the monitor explodes with a spray of sparks, and fall onto my tail as Iggy clutches his abdomen and orgasms from a seizure of laughter.

"HAHAHHAHA... heeheeheehee... wohohohohoh! Aha-aha-AHAHA!"

"SCHEISSE!" The bastard had sabotaged my invention - and it would take me all night and probably a good portion of the day to repair! I suck the last of my large raspberry mocha and throw the cup forcefully to the ground, aware of how much I will need to buy another one - and yet another one on top of that - to make it through the night.

"That isn't funny, Iggy Hop Koopa! Why, I ought to report you for sabotage and disqualify you for the award!"

"HAHAHA-and maybe I ought to report you for trying to use your invention to steal my secret ideas - and there are a few other things I could report you for too! Teeheeheeheehee!"

Blackmail... how low of him. He winks at me before falling onto the floor and clutching his aching diaphragm that continues to quake with involuntary giggling, and I wonder, more desperately than ever, exactly how MUCH he knows.

And_ how_...

Iggy barely manages to lift himself up to walk away, his legs slow and wobbly, his head dizzily spiraling back and forth... he fails to step forward with his other leg soon enough to prevent himself from falling, and thus falls flat onto his belly, passed out.


	14. Pondering

**Note to The One Who Is Not Reading This: **

**Destroying unjustly obtained spacefront property is a GREAT way to "END" someone! ;D**

**Note to somebody who IS reading this:**

**Maybe you ought to read the rest of the story before you go into a fanboy/girl rage, k? (I'm a fangirl myself, so, well, you know how that goes ;)**

I check Iggy's pulse and open his eyelids to determine whether or not he is indeed asleep.

He is - DEEPLY so. The Zarcolex knocked him three stages down through the murkiest depths of slumber.

Good.

I, on the other hand, shall engage in no such inactivities. I don't sleep but once a week, twice at the very most, anyway. And by my standards, I am still well-rested from my own experience with Zarcolex.

The thought of throwing Iggy off a cliff or into a deep body of water suddenly flashes through my mind, but I shake it away and tenderly tuck him into his Norwegian-made bed. I do, after all, intend on winning this the fair way, even if such concepts are yet beyond him. I NEED to find out which of the two of us is greater...

Did I just consider killing my brother? Well, my half-brother, but still...

Have I become hooked from the high I had gotten from murdering Egglantine? I have heard that the murder addiction that affects many serial killers is similarly potent to drug addiction...

Overwhelmed by such thoughts, I breathe tensely as I exit the dorm room.

"I... AM NOT... A PSYCHOPATH!"

I slam the door shut at that last word.

Indeed, I had good reason to kill Eggy. She is, after all... evil, I am sure of it.

Or maybe I am just paranoid...

NEIN! I am NOT paranoid! Nor am I schizophrenic, for I do not hear voices in my head... well, they don't sound like voices anyway... they sound like thoughts...

I... _Ich brauche mehr Kaffee!_

So I get myself another double-espresso mocha to buzz the thoughts away, and I begin to fix what Iggy had wrecked- I am SURE it was him, this damage is just the type of damage that only HE would do!

Well, maybe I am not so sure about what he would or wouldn't do anymore, but the teethmarks on some of the wires are very telling.

Indeed... only Iggy is capable of this...

He made some sort of sick twisted abstract puzzle out of the machine parts. It is as though he merely wanted to keep me preoccupied...

Preoccupied... Iggy. Nutty, random Iggy, with the subtlety to play such games with me? Nein, Iggy, for all his brilliance, does not have quite that degree of mental sophistication. And even if he does, he would be fool to play such games with me, Prince Ludwig von Koopa, MASTER of such games. His checkmate was, after all, due to the bombshell that I wish Princess Lavender had waited to drop upon me.

Perhaps it's about time I play a little game of my own...

Since I am not fully aware of all that is going on, I must work with what I DO know, taking into full consideration every factor that I know is unknown. Being, among many other things, a quantum physicist, I should be quite adept at that. Just working with Iggy lately has been practice at working with the unknown...

Yes, Eggs certainly DID know about the glasses, for I had not mentioned anything about the swirls to her, and yet her dying words were "the swirly glasses... are a party favor".

Which makes it more than possible that her father knows about them.

Such thoughts flicker through my head as I deftly reattach all of the machine parts, finishing well before Iggy had intended for me to. I hope.

Hopefully he hadn't counted on the remote mind-control technology I had come up with and installed during the time it had taken for me to repair the machine.

If that does not impress the judges, then Iggy's faulty synaptic reorganization technology certainly won't. But I do not need to demonstrate this feature to them in order to impress them enough to win the prize. Nor do I want to.

The time of judgment has come. At last. After so many interruptions, I shall FINALLY be declared the winner! I effervesce with giggles, being positively giddy from that thought, and also from caffeine psychosis.

First I must offer Iggy a coffee. A large, black, oversweetened drip brew infused with a triple helping of espresso and a couple of ground Excedrin tablets. Which he will accept, knowing how much he enjoys the effects of coffee...

"No thank you!" Iggy turns away and giggles to himself.

"What? But you LOVE coffee! I even dissolved sugar in it to the point of saturation, just the way you like it!"

Grr... am I going to have to, somehow, hide this inside a barbarian cream doughnut?

"Yes, you will drink it... and you will love it... it's espresso!"

I grab Iggy by the neck, and he opens his mouth, sticks his tongue out and says "aah". I pour the coffee down his throat, which, thankfully for him, had taken long enough to supersaturate with sugar that it had cooled down enough not to scald his esophagus.

"Mmm... coffee!" Iggy takes the cup and licks the unsaturated clumps of sugar out of the bottom.

I smirk at his exuberant satisfaction. "Best coffee you've ever had, huh? Just wait until you try Viennese coffee."

Secondly, I must ask a favor of the Princess. I nervously pace over to where Lavender is standing and clear my throat to alert her to my presence.

"Luddy? Are you OK?"

"For the moment, yes. I..." No, I couldn't ask of her such a favor. Putting an innocent in danger, and one who would do just about anything in her power to protect me at that...

"You wish to ask a favor, am I correct?"

Lavender's wide, shining eyes blink innocuously through her clearly polished glasses. There is no need to ask, for she already has her eye out for me.

"Uh, never mind... wait... keep a safe distance from Iggy, all right?"

Lavender giggles. "I am not worried about Iggy."

But I am worried about her... she might just snap... no, not during the judging she won't...

While the judges begin their judging with Gadd's project, Iggy looses his caffeine energy by spinning around in a circle while shaking his arms and yodeling. Taking care to avoid being hit, I prod him on the back of his neck, and he tips over, falling flat on his stomach.

Iggy pushes himself up with a bounce, and in a heartbeat he is face-to-face with me, ogling my eyes, his fingers trembling.

"GLASSES!"

I grab Iggy's wrists, which he struggles vigorously to wrest away.

"You promised I can have glasses during judging!"

"Not right now, the judging is not over yet..."

I have to paw Iggy's paws down repeatedly, like in a game of hot potato. Iggy then tenses to leap at me...

"Iggy, I do not think that you want to start a fight with me. If you do, you will be disqualified. And possibly sent on vacation again..."

Iggy's eyes light up at the thought of starting a fight, but then furrow at the thought of being disqualified and or hospitalized. "Fine, then. Have it that way."

Iggy walks back toward his own project. He stops, hunches over, and snickers, as though he is deviously rubbing his hands together, or worse...

"Ahahahaha... AHAHAHAHAHAHA HAH!"

"All right! Here, you can have the verdammt glasses!"

I close my eyes before removing the glasses and toss them. Iggy perks up when he feels them ping off of his shell and jumps in glee, throwing his own glasses off before putting mine on.

I did not expect him to do that. Another beneficial side effect of the caffeine, perhaps. I had been prepared to give the entire presentation with my eyes shut had I not been able to nonviolently procure glasses. I lock onto the position of those glasses, close my eyes and crawl toward it.

A piercing shriek rattles my shell. Lavender! Did Iggy hurt her?

I stand up and open my eyes. Lavender appears not to be harmed in any way that requires urgent medical attention. But her glasses... her ordinary pink-framed glasses...

I knew this was going to happen!


	15. Taken for a Spin

**Hello, everyone, sorry if you have found the wait for an update to be any bit excruciating... it's just that, well, I've been busy with my new job (freelance tutoring! :D), studying (ON MY OWN, because you cannot actually LEARN anything at college - how ironic -_-), roleplaying (yes I've got a Ludwig Kooky Koopa account on FB, feel free to add if you're a fellow role player), the Chipmunks Parody Show (now I deserve to be SHOT for how long I've been taking with it lately, luckily I FINALLY put a new episode out this month =D), my Hetalia fanfics and Born to be King, and of course exploring the city now that I have a bus pass! :D**

**A few weeks ago I got me some George Washington candies - um, I mean Mozartkugeln (as it turns out, there is a lady that lives in this county who imports them from Austria to sell at her chocolate shop! :3) and they were... pricey, but delicious, if you like (me LOVE) marzipan and smooth dark chocolate :3 and like a pig I ate them all right away...**

**Oh and I also found some Deutsch language wrapper Milka bars at an international foods market, some in flavors rare in the US that you CANNOT find at Walmart, and as it turns out, the strawberry yogurt filling is NOT actually pink. It's white with red specks. LEMMY, STRAWBERRY AND PINK ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS GET WITH THE PROGRAM!**

**Ahem, so with that out of the way, tonight's chapter shall commence! :D**

"Luddy?

Lavender's face was blurred, all except for the swirls. The swirls have me caught by the head, straining against my neck as I barely hold against their vacuum force. In a seeming tie in the tug of war between me and the swirls, my knees suddenly buckle and I fall over onto my back, the spikes in my shell crushing into the stony floor.

For a fleet second, my eyes are free from the swirls. I dip my head back into my shell, spin around on it and flip over. I poke my head back out to face the judges; hopefully I can keep Lavender out of my sight long enough for them to judge my project...

But wait...

I close my left eye and peered at them through the slightest sliver of an opening between my eyelids for my right eye...

The lids are yanked open, and my eye feels bare and exposed, as though it has no lids at all.

SPIRALS...

I feel the ceiling spinning around me, and I am about to fall into it...

Just as I had suspected. The were all wearing the swirled lenses.

ALL OF THEM.

My distorted sense of sight blends into my other senses. My vestibular system can no longer tell which way the gravity is coming from, my sense of touch is hazed in a dreamlike vagueness, and I hear the same sound echoing from all directions, ringing in harmony with the sickening, pulsing spiral motion of the swirls...

Even my sense of logic has been thrown in the blender. The sound is familiar, but I am slow to realize what it is, until a jolt of fear snaps me into a brief moment of clear senses...

IGGY.

That manic laughter... this is... I swiftly withdraw my entire body into my shell so I can think clearly for a second.

This is all HIS doing!

Iggy is trying to put me in the happy house - and PERMANENTLY. That way I will be out of the competition for good.

But the glasses... I noticed no such effects while wearing them... If I can ONLY get my claws on that pair that Iggy threw off his face to take mine!

But the very thought of PEEKING out through my shell is paralyzing. Even a quick peek would be too long... even if I spun around in my shell to view my entire surroundings in a split second... spinning, what am I, nuts? That's the last thing I need is more gyratory motion...

BUT... perhaps spinning around in my shell would counteract the spiraling force of the swirls? Long enough at least to see if I could find the glasses? Indeed, it is worth trying.

I poke my arms out and push them against the floor in opposite directions to wind myself like a top. As I stare out through my shell, everything rushes past just as though I were on a normal merry-go-round, nothing funny from the swirls. Of course, it is difficult to catch a good image of what you are looking for...

As I slow down, I continue to evade the swirls, and I finally see the spot on the floor where the glasses have fallen to.

I immediately brake my spinning, flip myself over onto the flat side of my shell, and kick myself to slide toward the glasses.

Closer... my, do they seem far away... I give myself another kick toward them...

I dart my hand out to grab them the moment I slide by them. But I fail to pull them into my shell; instead I spiral around the glasses as though they are rooted into the floor.

"Ahahahahheeheeheeheeeee..."

Iggy has the glasses by the other end. His head is tossed back in laughter, and he will undoubtedly toss it forth to swirl me back into submission in a second.

With an involuntary roar of rage, I pounce onto Iggy's chest and slam him into the floor, his glasses flying off his face.

I leap over Iggy's face, pick up the glasses and slam them onto my face, nearly poking my eyes with the frames, and bending them somewhat out of shape.

I whip my head back around to face Iggy. He is now wearing the glasses he had swiped off the floor from me.

Now, if I can just get those glasses off his face, then HE will be on the receiving end of his own devious swirls... and then HE will be the one under indefinite lockdown at the Bavarian psychiatric hospital!

Iggy finally eases out of his laughter enough to notice me, that I am protected by the glasses, and clearly thirsty for vengeance, small flames flickering out through my nose with every exhalation. My claws are ready to pin his down should e on an impulse decide to leap at me to take the glasses off.

Iggy hides into his shell, whimpering, defeated. Or so he would like me to think... but then I never know WHAT to expect from Iggy anymore...

He pops out with his hands aimed at my face, but I grab them and slam them into the nearby wall.

Hmm, I cannot let go of his hands, so in order to get his glasses off I will have to turn him around and knock his face into the wall until the glasses fall off.

Which is exactly what I do. Iggy screams each time I batter him into the wall, his glasses becoming scratched and crooked. Wait, why am I knocking him into the WALL? My verdammt torturous tendencies...

I pull him away from the wall and shake him until the glasses fall off, and then I turn him away and get set to throw him to the other side of the room.

"WAAAAH BARBARIAN! HOW BARBARIC LUDWIG NAZI!"

"HERR VON KOOPA! What are you doing to your brother?"

Hildegard, Crygor and the late Eggy's father are all glaring at me.

"HE was assaulting me with the swirls..."

"SWIRLS?" Hildegard raises an eyebrow.

"I mean... he kept on trying to steal my glasses..."

"HE was trying to take MY glasses!" Iggy cries, reaching his hand out of his shell to point at me, tears dripping out of the neck of his shell. "And-and he was slamming me into a wall, and shaking me like a baby trying to give me shaken baby syndrome!"

I sigh. Iggy likely already has shaken baby syndrome, having gotten it while still inside the egg, Lemmy perhaps as well.

"Ludwig von Koopa, you are coming with me to the office. You, ahem, clearly need some counseling, if you feel the need to treat your own brother that way. Come to the office with me and we'll get you all sorted out."

"Um, nein, danke..."

"COME."

Iggy reaches his neck over to whisper "happy house" into my ear. As I follow Hildegard away to her office, he bounces up and down, taunting me with his tongue, giggling and shouting, "Nyah nyah nyah nyah NYAH-ZI!"

How he has his way with the folks around here, especially as disrespectful as he is, I have not a clue. But I do know indeed that it is not over yet. Iggy will NOT get away with this! Even... if it comes to it... I shall have no choice...

_Iggy must die._


	16. The Height

**FINALLY I'M UPDATING AGAIN YEAH!**

**So, you ask, what happened over the past four months?**

**DRUGS ._.**

**Yuuup, I believe the last time I updated was right before I decided to try Zoloft... did it make me calm, 'stable', and happy?**

**Ur, yeah...**

**And unmotivated...**

**And unable to get caffeine high ._.**

**SO, I quit! And I feel great, the best I've felt in three months! So listen here kids, unless you've got something SERIOUSLY wrong with you, drug free is the way to be!**

**I mean, I'm not quite as unstable as Iggy, after all. Or Ludwig, for that matter...**

Hildegard seizes me forcefully by the hands to take me to her office. My glasses fall off from the way she jerks me (on accident, I'm sure).

I shall come quietly. Put up no resistance...

I am seated in an easy chair in that office, which is too clean and prim for a university of mad scientists, and is decorated to an obnoxious degree with pictures of her family, all of them puke-inducingly smiling. Just one more reason to keep my eyes shut.

I fold my hands, docile as can be, my tail wriggling about inside my shell.

"Herr von Koopa, we are only concerned about your well-being. The fact that you are showing violence toward others, for reasons besides pure jealousy, is great cause for concern, and if you have one scrap of sanity you are most certainly concerned about yourself as well..."

I turn my face toward the floor, lest she decide to be concerned about my eyes being closed. The object that my tail has managed to encounter whilst wriggling through my shell is being pushed out through the space that my left leg comes out from...

"Herr von Koopa, are you listening? Quit staring at the floor and look me in the eyes."

She means look her in the glasses...

"Open your eyes, Herr von Koopa!"

I do. Just a crack, enough to peer through my tangled hair at Hildegard without making eye contact. I slowly pull my left hand behind my leg through the hollow in the shell...

"HERR VON KOOPA!"

My eyes dart up to take a quick aim, and I toss it.

The tranquilizer dart, straight at her chest.

Hildegard yelps as the needle pierces her in the bosom, reaching her hand feebly for the phone, which I swiftly seize from her faltering grip.

Before half a minute is over, she is slumped over onto her chair, in a very light sleep, but nevertheless sufficient to free me from her for the moment.

I remove the dart before all of its fluid seeps through to put her into a deeper sleep and store it back into my shell. Heaven knows I might need it again.

I glare over her slumbering corpse, my eyes gleaming with bloodlust. Dare I commit my second murder of the week now?

Nein. The perpetrator would be only all too obvious in this case. I shall suffer no consequences from medicating her through the dart, for I had designed the formula so that she will awaken as though from an afternoon nap, her short term memory erased, with no suspicious metabolites to be found in her urine or blood.

Iggy, on the other hand... all too easy to get away with.

But, I have to catch him first...

As I leave the office, I am relieved to see that the pair of glasses that fell off my face is still there. I figured Iggy would have swiped them up just so I couldn't have them, but, judging by the unstable tenor of the shouting I could hear indistinctly from the auditorium, he was rather preoccupied with his first major ego trip.

"WHERE IS MY AWARD? HURRY UP AND GIVE IT TO ME ALREADY!"

"B-but, um... Mister Koopa... we have to, um, w-wait for the chancellor to return b-before we can tally up the points and reach a decision...

"WHYYY? I ALREADY HAVE MY VICTORY SPEECH WRITTEN AND I WANT IT NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW! NOW!..."

From the fleshy thudding sound and the muffled grunting voice of Eggy Sr., Iggy, in a state of mind rather like that of a child impatient to be served a slice of birthday cake, is using the man's back as a trampoline.

The bouncing stops the moment Iggy spots a blue tuft of hair pass within view through the auditorium entrance.

"LUDWIIIIIIG!" he screeches, a sound more cacophonous than Morton's death metal roars. "Y-y-YOU... are supposed to be safe and locked up and having a JOLLY good time at the BLOODY HAPPY HOUSE!"

"Ja, and YOU are supposed to be on your medication." I pull the tranquilizer dart out of my shell once again. "But I can take care of that for you, if you like."

Iggy freezes in place, and a second later swiftly pulls a sort of handheld laser gun out of his shell. "HALT! See this here? THIS is a death ray... yes, that's right, I made it compact so it fits nice and snug inside your shell so you can pull it out and kill someone nice and swiftlike making their corpse disintegrate and vanish without a trace whenever you feel like it! HEHEHAHAHEEEE... and LISTEN! Heeheehee... I am NOT!... AFRAID!... TO USE IT! HAHAHAHAHAAAA!"

The tranquilizer dart slips from my claws. Iggy is aiming the gun at me, shaking, taking turns winking his eyes as t hough to find with eye helps him to aim better, his body giggling as though he cannot control it...

I pop into my shell and pop right out instantly with the sardonyx scepter in hand. I aim a blue fireball at him, which causes him to jump and yelp in fear, dropping his own weapon and running to avoid the flaming orb which is homing in on him.

"AAAAHHH! YAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."

Iggy holds the note of his scream steadily as he clutches his sore bottom. It is all too easy for me to grab him and run him outside.

This evening has brought stormy, foggy, typical mountaintop weather. The grass is slick with rain beneath my feet but still I run, almost without a care that I might slip and fall off the peak.

"...AAAAAAAAAAAAA..."

Iggy continues to scream with the same pitch and volume. I am amazed at how long he can do so without becoming hoarse or needing to take a breath. He would make a fine opera tenor one day should he ever lose his irrational fear of music that is authentically musical.

Provided he survives that long, that is.

I run the operatic Iggy up the highest part of the mountain that I can climb up without slipping. This requires hopping up stones, digging my claws in through turbid grass roots for traction, and holding Iggy somewhat to the front to assure that the center of gravity does not send us careening back down the hilltop.

"...AAAAAAAAA-OOMPF!"

Now that I am at the peak, I toss Iggy to the ground, which he better cling to for dear life for there is a razor-sharp altitude drop just centimeters from his own center of gravity. He is now winded, wheezing from screaming for... however long he had been screaming... from my personal experience of resuscitating him in the case that he decides to hold his breath to protest punishment or for _Himmel_ knows what other bizarre reason might have struck his manic mind, Iggy is capable of holding his breath for six minutes. Still, his screaming has clearly come to his disadvantage, for it has weakened him so that he cannot put up a decent struggle at this moment.

I seize Iggy by his green tuft of hair and hold his head down over the edge of the mountain, to give him a solid picture of what his fate in the not-too-distant future might be. The depths are buried beneath a sea of clouds, so high is our altitude from the terrestrial minimum.

"Iggy... Ignatius... Igor... Iggy Hop Koopa. I pause now to ponder my regrets, both those of past and those yet to come. My greatest regret of past is, well... you. As your older brother, I have done everything that an older brother should do for a younger sibling - I incubated you, rescucitating that dud of an egg that your mother had laid; I have been entrusted with the responsibility of being your babysitter, have practically raised you, taken responsibility where King Dad has been too lazy to take charge for himself, and done a far better job than he ever could have, might I add; and lastly but most importantly, I have given to you the greatest gift that any one can possibly give to another, or should I say, impossibly before I made it so: the gift of Geniusification."

Iggy begins laughing; not sheepishly, but as though he thinks the very fact that he is being held just over his imminent doom is funny. It is to me, of course, but I am not laughing. I ignore him and resume my soliloquy.

"Yes, indeed, of all my siblings, it was you who was most needing, wanting, and therefore, or so I thought at the time, deserving of Geniusification. And so I let you have it, and I have taken personal responsibility to oversee and enrich your intellectual development. I have trained you in the ways of science, and, might I say, your talent has flourished. And look at you now. Nominated for a Frankenstein prize. I have reason to stand back and beam in pride at what you... what I... have accomplished.

"And yet, in a single, crucial aspect, I have failed. Iggy, I am not sure if you are sane enough to understand this... you see, there is no genius without madness, I am certain you can understand and agree to that... but there is a fine, fine line between madness and pure, unbridled insanity.

"I... have created the monster that is you, Iggy. To take somebody that was mentally unstable to start with, and blow it along with their intellect way out of proportion, and then to unleash such a menace upon society... was outright foolish of me. And, being that you are mentally unfit to be responsible for your own actions, I and I alone must shoulder the burden of responsibility for such a misdeed. There are only two ways I can make it right, Iggy. Do you know what they are?"

Iggy merely continues to laugh.

"LISTEN to me, I am SERIOUS! One of my two options is to strap you back into the Geniusificator and strip your intelligence back down to mental retardation. To downgrade you from societal menace to mere nuisance.

"The other option, which, at the moment, is rather the easier choice I must admit, is to simply strip you of your life altogether. Look deep down to the ground upon which you will drop, Iggy. Can't see it, ja? That's how far down below it is. This is the real world, Iggy, no number of green mushrooms will save you. You will fall down, and down, and down, and since you are so high above now you will reach a frightening velocity before your body hits the bottom. And thanks to that frightening velocity, you will impact the ground so hard your shell will split open and so will all of your bones, and your organs, including your brain - ESPECIALLY your brain will be smeared over the earth like petroleum jelly."

Yes, his brain... that ought to frighten him. I quake with sick satisfaction at the thought. "PETROLEUM!"

"Ahem, pardon my outburst... anyway, mein Bruder, since I am feeling quite merciful, on top of standing something to gain from all this, I could quite shall leave the choice to you. Die or live once again among the feeble-minded. You shall have the mercy of the softer option, if you are willing to tell me..."

Still hanging Iggy by the roots of his hair, I turn him around to face me and I whisper.

"What is the secret of the googly specs..."

I have barely uttered this question when Iggy starts laughing louder than ever. I reflexively grab him by one arm, aware that by now he might be a little less winded...

"WHAT THE HELL IS SO VERDAMMT FUNNY?"

"WHAAAHAhahaHAhaHAhahaHAaaAAA! HeeEE hee hee... Why, dear brother, i-i-it's downright hilarious h-h-how green with envy you are! WooOOoohooho, waahaahaaAAAa..."

Iggy's glasses are eerie with fog from the moist mountaintop atmosphere. I wipe them off to reveal his pupils, one constricted to a slit, the other black and fully dilated. These dual symptoms of mydriasis and miosis, along with his raucous and frightfully discordant laughter, cause me to almost drop him off the mountaintop out of fear rather than... for the reasons I brought him up here..."

"Yahaha, I mean, YOU, mister I'm-so-smart-smarter-than-anything-or-anybody-that-ever-was-or-ever-will-be-I-deserve-to-be-king-of-the-universe... jealous? Of little old ME? WAAAHHAahaaAah... One would never know it from the way you p-put me d-d-d-d-down all the time... WAHOHO! I-I mean, what reason do you have to be jealous big brother? Y-y-you are my idol, th-the most amazing a-and brilliant big brother I think anybody has ever had, I have always wanted to be just like you - o-or-or at least for as long as I can remember... Y-you always got all the rewards at school, the b-best grades, a-a-and everybody is always annoyed at how smart and arrogant and pretentious you are, and the way you show off... you-you have any idea how deeply I desired all of that? You-you have proven yourself to be more than a mere mortal, and yet you strive even to push that envelope... it-it's inspiring! A-and all I have ever been is a four eyed overmedicated weirdo in special ed - so f-f-far behind you I feared I may never reach your level... t-t-tr-truth be told, I I-I have always been jealous of YOU!"

Well. Of COURSE he would be. In all honesty, I don't know who wouldn't be...

Iggy stares into my eyes with a vacant expression, laughing feebly. The dilated pupil shrinks, and the the constricted pupil expands, until they switch sizes.

And then it happens again. And again. Faster and faster...

ACH! I'm not sure which is worse, these or the googles!

"WAHAHHAHAHAhahahaAAHh! W-wouldn't you like to know the secret behind m-my pupils?"

"Nnnnn... no. The GLASSES! Tell me, how do they work? HOW? TELL ME SO I CAN BE RID OF THEM!"

"WEEEHHHEEE Teeheetaahaaah... NEVER!"

I turn Iggy's face away back toward the edge of the mountaintop.

"V-very well then. You have made your bed with the fishes, n-now prepare to sleep with them..."

"Ohhhhh...? B-bu-but you wouldn't REALLY d-d-d-d-do that to your b-b-b-b-baby brother, w-w-would you?" Iggy twisted himself around to stare up at me with wide, limpid eyes, both of them fully dilated for maximum effect, his lower lip quivering.

"Whh...why not? There's nothing stopping me. If anybody wonders, I will just tell them the honest truth... that you did it to yourself, like the nutcase that you are."

"What's the matter, having second thoughts, dear brother? Neeheehee, I knew it, you're all pomp and no guts, you don't really have the gall to kill me, you burnt it all out on that poor little Eggy girl!"

"At least I shall spare your last moments her suffering - wait a minute!" I very nearly drop him in astonishment. "HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?"

"Mrrrhrrhrrmrreeehee heeEEE... how would I NOT know about that, big brother! EEYEAHHEAHEAaaa... THE TABLES HAVE TURNED BROTHER DEAR!"

Iggy licks my face, wet and with enough lengual pressure to slide the glasses off my face.

SWIRLS...

Next thing I know I am the one being held off the edge of the cliff, and the last thing I hear is Iggy's burst of cacophonous mania as I am released to the sweet and deadly clutches of freefall...


	17. Fluttering

If ever there shall be an opportune time to test it, it is now.

My mind sinks slower than I fall, but it has not fully sunken yet. My arm pops out of my shell holding my custom made scepter, no longer imbued with the late Yoshi's blood, but still imbued with her miraculous gravity-defying jumping ability.

My freefall freezes for a few seconds as I hold the scepter, glowing and sparking blue, up through the fog, feeling the quasi-electrical fields of magic course from the sardonyx through the staff to my body.

Lightning crackles through the clouds overhead, drawn by the presence of my scepter like a lightning rod. In a way, I feel electrified, and light as helium, fluttering energy buzzing down my nerves. I inhale deeply of the fog and allow the energy to loose in my legs.

The motion is like running up a flight of stairs... stairs that are nothing but air and fog. Only my legs have never, ever moved so fast in my life; so fast, there had to be significant relativistic effects of some sort, but all that happened was that my body flew upward, just high enough to catch a glimpse of my deranged adversary's green sprout of hair. Not high enough for him to notice yet though, I should think not. This momentary burst of flutters winds down and I dip a bit.

I grit my teeth, grunting, tense my grip around the scepter and ride another burst of foot fluttering. This time before I even see him, I hear Iggy screaming, bouncing up and down while pulling his hair, dismayed that he had failed to murder his elder brother.

Looking good for me... until I once again catch sight of the swirls.

I feel like I am falling... up into the swirls, and down away from the top of the cliff at the same time. Does this... does this mean I am... stretching? My head feels so... light... I try to blink but I cannot... am I... am I all right?

And then my lids finally shut, and I keep them shut. Returned to my senses, I grind out a third burst of fluttering, and this time I do not merely ride it - I DRIVE it. My arms, legs, tail and even head waggle as I flutter up toward the source of Iggy's distorted babbling. Requiring only sound to locate him, I aim a fireball from my wand and feel a sick wave of pleasure at his screaming from the pain of magically waterproof flames.

I open my eyes, and lo and behold...

Iggy had dodged it! And faked the scream of burning pain to trick me into opening my eyes.

I aim another blast straight at the glasses before the swirls can ensnare me again, and this time, I make sure it hits him. He will be burning for a good long while now.

As for I... I am falling, and I have used the last of my flutters.

Or have I?

I, Prince Ludwig von Koopa, am no dilletante; I master everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that I do. If an ordinary Yoshi can flutter thrice, then an extraordinary Koopa such as I can flutter at least once more beyond that...

I take a deep breath and entrance myself. Go to that place where I am exalted... where I have boundless power...

And the fourth flutter happens.

I once again flutter high enough to spy Iggy, now writhing dementedly in burning agony, and I pull inside my shell and toss it in a sharp spin back over high ground.

My feet on slick alpine grass once more. Never for a second did I fear never to feel that again. THAT is key.

I wave my sceptor over Iggy to douse the enchantingly blue flames and immediately seize him by the nape of his pencil neck. What to do, oh what to do with... this...

"LUDDY! IGGY!"

I see Princess Lavender running up this hill, holding up her skirt to avoid stepping on it. I can see her clearly as before I was diagnosed as needing glasses, despite the fact that I am wearing none...

"What are you doing? Are you trying to kill your brother?!"

"I am as of yet still not resigned from that thought," I growl, furtively watching myself stroke my chin in the glare of Iggy's suddenly swirlless glasses.

"DON'T! Ludwig..." The princess touches me, and I shove her arms away.

"Dare not tell ME what to do Prinzessin! This creature is a monster and a menace to my chances of... I mean a menace to society, and for that it must be put down! Put down off the top of this mountain would do quite nicely..."

"Ludwig, don't be so cruel, he is your brother! The one sibling of yours who is almost as intelligent as you!"

"ALMOST?! EXCUSE ME?!"

"Well... fine then, your one sibling who is at least somewhat competent, intellectually speaking. And look at him, he's harmless!"

Iggy smiled goofily up at me, waving 'hi' as though he were completely innocent and oblivious to all matters.

However, the swirls are, for whatever reason, gone. For now.

So, in the name of good sportsmanship and brotherhood, he shall be spared this once.

I let go of his neck and swiftly grab him by the arm. He however remains docile as I escort him back to the castle.

The swift and sure removal of his genius is only a crank on the reverse Geniusificator setting away... A giggle escapes and shatters my bravado of proud composure.

Princess Lavender turns around. "Hmm? What is so hilarious to my dear Luddums?"

"Ohhh, I am about to win the Frankenstein PRIZE! How can I completely suppress such GLEE!"

Lavender nods, smirks and giggles. "Oh, my Luddy... my dear, presumptuous Luddy..."

...

"MY SYNAPSE SWITCHER! OHHHOHHHOHHH, MY BAAAAAAYBEEEEE!"

Iggy presses the side of his face to the machine and rubs it tenderly with his hand, turning to kiss and lick it at random moments.

Must do it now. Hurry up and grab him and shove him in the Geniusificator. Kill his intelligence. Kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it...

But wait! So much I could see inside his mind if I first put it inside my own invention... curiosity, it beckons...

Which one, which one... must decide fast... but at the moment I am unnerved by the discussion Princess Lavender is having with Professor Gadd... my mind purposely drowns out what they are talking about, for I fear for some reason that it is not something I want to hear, although I cannot imagine why not...

This judging cannot pass soon enough... oh wait, Doctor Crygor is the only remaining judge, at least until Hildegard wakes up... and a third one is also required...

Iggy's drooling self-love over his own machine is becoming rather noxious. I must end it... Or see what's going on, there might be... there is definitely MORE going on than he is leading on...

"Luddy! Want to see my nanobots in action?"

"NOT NOW!... I mean, sure..."

I truly do... after all, Iggy is currently incapacitated by his machine fetish, which has turned from obnoxious to downright obscene... I truly need an immediate break for the eyes...

As I read Lavender's reports and watch the videos, she makes an incredible nuisance of herself, as usual, by hugging me and rubbing her face through my hair. Just as I had digested the first chunk of data, she begins to drag me away...

I suddenly find that she is strapping me into a seat, fitting me with a helmet, locking cuffs over my wrists... with a sickening jolt of jugular blood, I realize I am in the Geniusificator.

Lavender stands there smiling innocuously, while Iggy finishes with the machine and darts right before me, wearing the same unsettlingly innocent expression.

"I have to wonder just how confused you are right now," Iggy says, his voice uncharacteristically calm and steady. "Why not only I, but this little missy right here, your number one fan and supporter no less, have turned against you."

I close my eyes. Competition brings out the worst in people, no great mystery there. I hear Iggy's laugh, calmer and more controlled than usual, as I feel his breath blow warm and wet over my face. I open my eyes to see how frightfully close he has brought his face to mine; as cool and collected a demeanor I affect, he clearly suspects that my internal mental state is otherwise...

"Teeheeheeeee... Soooo... How confused are you right now?"


	18. Potato

"Competition brings out the worst in people, no mystery there."

I can tell what Iggy is up to now. He is going to take this moment to gloat about the success of his dastardly schemes and expose every detail of his treacherous plot to have the satisfaction of rubbing it in my face right before he finishes me.

I shall continue to keep my expression blunt so as to at least withhold THAT kind of satisfaction.

"GrrRREEEHEEHEEheeheeee... Eeeehhhh..." Iggy taps his claws together while Lavender continues to stand still in keeping with her facade of unnerving innocence.

"Just to clarify... d-d-do you remember what happened back at the... science fair? Oooi, of bloody course you do, you have an eidetic memory don't you?"

I roll my eyes. "...But of course..."

Iggy blinks jerkily adjusts his glasses. "Weeeeelll, let's go over the details, shall we? Have a little, erhem... recitation?"

No harm in humoring him. "I entered with my multisensory mind viewer... you, with your synapse switcher... I won first, of course, Eggy won second..."

"NOOOOOT SO FAST! I mean b-be-before awards were announced."

"Well, I allowed Gadd, Lavender and Fawful to test my invention..."

"BUT! BUT BUT BUT BUT but but but... let's concentrate on MY invention right now, got it?"

"If you insist... I recall that you attempted to switch synapses with Lavender... but the machine exploded and thus failed to work... as a matter of fact I STILL haven't seen any evidence that your machine actually works."

"OOOOOOIIII, ooohooohooo you HAVEN'T, or have you, hrrrrrmmmm?"

Iggy snickers into his folded claws before clearing his throat to continue. "Let's fast forward to the part where you all get your... awards."

"Ah, yes, I remember you HUMILIATING me, though not quite so severely as you humiliated YOURSELF, by screaming and grabbing me as I am walking up to the stage."

"Uh huh.." Iggy rapidly nods his head, beckoning me to continue like a patronizing lecturer.

"You were screaming, and I quote: 'MY PROJECT SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN AN AWARD! Ludwig, wouldn't you say that my project deserves an award? Huh?' To which I replied, and I still stand by it, that you had never given me a close enough look to even know. I have seen NO evidence that your invention does more than just EXPLODE when you rev it up!"

Iggy cracks a snaggletooth grin, his eyes widening with excitement. "And...?"

"You wouldn't let go... you were shouting nonsense such as, 'What if I say that I made it explode on purpose?'"

"What if..." Iggy smirks and snickers. "Mmhmhmhmhmhmhmhm... WHAT IF!"

"And what sane reason might I ask have you to make it explode on purpose? I understand that you have a puerile fascination with explosive phenomena, but if winning an award was what you desired then you should have known better than to purposely instigate that..."

"True, true... unless..."

"Unless. Unless..."

Iggy continues with the patronizing beckoning. "Go on..."

"Unless you... wished to create a diversion, or... kill somebody, but neither you nor Lavender were harmed..."

"Harmed, no. Changed... hrrrrmmmm if I HAD given you a close enough look at the machine, you would have seen that I indeed DID design it to explode upon command, even in the midst of the synapse switching process..."

"So... if it exploded while the process were only partially complete..."

"Then only PARTIALLY will the synapses be switched! WAHAHAHAHAHAAAAaaa... Please tell me you of all people would have spotted that something was... OFF about me..."

"Well, I can't say that I haven't..." Indeed, it all adds up...

"And maybe something a little off about your little fangirl too hmmmm?"

"I... hm. In a way... "

"SO! With MY synapses slightly scrambled, I am even LESS predictable than normal! And she... SHE... is only incompletely treacherous, but still treacherous ENOUGH!"

Lavender giggles with a maniacal tone that I now recognize as my own brother's. I expect Iggy had promised her a portion of my brain after I am finished, which, to a partially Iggified Lavender, might seem oddly desirable.

"And together, we collaborated on this one idea Iggy had to completely incapacitate you... he credits my own Grandpa as the source of inspiration. I had to turn off the swirls for a bit though, as you can tell. You just weren't cooperating, just fighting the swirls all the time..."

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!" You're finished, dear brother, your career is over, you're a scientific has-been! Although I MIIIIGHT arrange it so that you can keep your, em, musical talent after I have brain drained you. Orrrrr, mayhaps I shall instead see what happens when I try to swap your synapses with a potato... POTATO! Hrrmm... options, options..."

Such cockiness... has been the undoing of our own father on more than one occasion... as it shall today be the undoing of his own son.

"Surely, before you do attempt to coerce me to exchange arrangements of cerebral matter with a tuberous vegetable, you would like a small peek inside my head, while it is still arranged in the order of MAGNIFICENCE?"

Lavender blushes. "Would I!" But Iggy pushes her back.

"W-well, I-I-I confess, I have always been... EVER curious to see exactly what happens inside that skull of yours..."

"Surely it is wisest if we check?" Lavender says. "If I know Luddy, and I do, then he has some trick up his sleeve we best be aware of."

"ANOTHER advantage to swapping a bit of brain with your personal stalker!" Iggy triumphantly raises his index finger into the air. "I know you INSIDE and OUT!"

Indeed, come to think of it, there were portions of Lavender's playing style evident in our chess game. Lavender has never once defeated me... but it should be said, no one else has been able to stalemate me as consistently often as she has.

"We... should turn the swirlies back on before we check..."

"NO! NO no... instead use THIS." Iggy holds up his handheld death ray. "He won't fight, he won't run away, he shall go into the machine for a quick peekie-poo and then we shall debrainify him! See, he wants us to let him go to read his mind. He wants us to give him a chance to ESCAPE! Let's not let him have it, see? Teeheeheeeee..."

Lavender nods and carefully unfastens me from the Geniusificator. I walk with a feigned hesitancy, coaxed by her patient prodding and the death ray Iggy is pointing at my head.

Lavender fastens me to the mind reader, she and Iggy both giddy as schoolgirls to see... and hear, and touch, and smell, and taste what's inside my magnificent mind.

It is quite fortunate, then, that after Iggy wrecked my machine the other night, that I had the foresight to install a new feature...


End file.
